company name | Bayer AG |
---|---|
company logo | |
company type | Aktiengesellschaft |
traded as | |
founder | Friedrich Bayer, Johann Friedrich Weskott |
foundation | 1863 |
location | Leverkusen, Germany |
key people | Marijn Dekkers (CEO), Manfred Schneider (Chairman of the supervisory board) |
revenue | €35.09 billion (2010) |
operating income | €2.730 billion (2010) |
net income | €1.301 billion (2010) |
assets | €51.51 billion (end 2010) |
equity | €18.90 billion (end 2010) |
num employees | 111,400 (FTE, 2010) |
industry | Pharmaceuticals, chemicals |
products | Veterinary drugs, diagnostic imaging, general and specialty medicines, women's health products, over-the-counter drugs, diabetes care, pesticides, plant biotechnology, polymers, coatings, adhesives |
homepage | www.bayer.com |
subsid | Bayer MaterialScience, Bayer USA, Bayer Schering Pharma, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Bayer CropScience |
intl | yes }} |
Bayer's first major product was acetylsalicylic acid (originally discovered by French chemist Charles Frederic Gerhardt in 1853), a modification of salicylic acid or salicin, a folk remedy found in the bark of the willow plant. By 1899, Bayer's trademark Aspirin was registered worldwide for Bayer's brand of acetylsalicylic acid, but because of the confiscation of Bayer's US assets and trademarks during World War I by the United States - and the subsequent widespread usage of the word to describe all brands of the compound, "Aspirin" lost its trademark status in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. It is now widely used in the US, UK, and France for all brands of the drug. However in over 80 other countries, such as Canada, Mexico, Germany, and Switzerland, it is still a registered trademark of Bayer.
In 1904, the Bayer company introduced the Bayer cross as its corporate logo. Because Bayer's aspirin was sold through pharmacists and doctors only, and the company could not put its own packaging on the drug, the Bayer cross was imprinted on the actual tablets, so that customers would associate Bayer with its aspirin.
As part of the reparations after World War I, Bayer had its assets, including the rights to its name and trademarks confiscated in the United States, Canada, and several other countries. In the United States and Canada, Bayer's assets and trademarks were acquired by Sterling Drug, a predecessor of Sterling Winthrop.
The Bayer company then became part of IG Farben, a conglomerate of German chemical industries that formed a part of the financial core of the German Nazi regime. IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B, a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. During World War II, the company also extensively used slave labor in factories attached to large slave labor camps, notably the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. When the Allies split IG Farben into several pieces after World War II for involvement in organized Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. The Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.
In 1978, Bayer purchased Miles Laboratories and its subsidiaries Miles Canada and Cutter Laboratories (along with a product line including Alka-Seltzer, Flintstones vitamins and One-A-Day vitamins, and Cutter insect repellent). In 1994, Bayer AG purchased Sterling Winthrop's over-the-counter drug business from SmithKline Beecham and merged it with Miles Laboratories, thereby reacquiring the U.S. and Canadian trademark rights to "Bayer" and the Bayer cross, as well as the ownership of the Aspirin trademark in Canada.
On November 2, 2010, Bayer AG signed an agreement to buy Auckland-based animal health company Bomac Group. Due to confidentiality obligations, no financial information was disclosed.
Bayer has discovered, among others:
Following the reorganization, its chemicals activities (with the exception of H.C. Starck and Wolff Walsrode) were combined with certain components of the polymers segment to form the new company Lanxess on July 1, 2004. Lanxess was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in early 2005. Bayer HealthCare's Diagnostics Division was acquired by Siemens Medical Solutions in January 2007.
Bayer AG shares are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange and previously on the New York Stock Exchange. Bayer is governed by a board of management, consisting of: Klaus Kühn, Wolfgang Plischke, Richard Pott, and Marijn Dekkers.
In 2004, Bayer HealthCare AG acquired the over-the-counter (OTC) Pharmaceutical Division of Roche Pharmaceuticals.
On March 13, 2006, Merck KGaA announced a €14.6bn bid for Schering AG. Merck's takeover bid was surpassed by Bayer's $19.5bn bid on March 23, 2006.
On March 11, 2008, Bayer HealthCare announced an agreement to acquire the portfolio and OTC division of privately owned Sagmel, Inc., a US-based company that markets OTC medications in most of the Commonwealth of Independent States countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and others.
In 2002, Bayer AG acquired Aventis CropScience and fused it with their own agrochemicals division (Bayer Pflanzenschutz or "Crop Protection") to form Bayer CropScience. The company is now one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of crop protection (i.e. pesticides), nonagricultural pest control, seeds and plant biotechnology. In addition to conventional agrochemical business, it is involved in genetic engineering of food. The Belgian biotech company Plant Genetic Systems became part of the company by the acquisition of Aventis CropScience.
Also in 2002, Bayer AG acquired the Dutch seed company Nunhems.
In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Bayer CropScience's LibertyLink genetically modified rice had contaminated the U.S. rice supply. Shortly after the the public learned of the contamination, the E.U. banned imports of U.S. long-grain rice and the futures price plunged. In April 2010, a Lonoke County, Arkansas jury awarded a dozen farmers $48 million. The case is currently on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court. On July 1, 2011 Bayer CropScience agreed to a global settlement for up to $750 million. In a statement to the media Bayer said: "Although Bayer CropScience believes it acted responsibly in the handling of its biotech rice, the company considers it important to resolve the litigation so that it can move forward focused on its fundamental mission of providing innovative solutions to modern agriculture."
Bayer CropScience is involved in a joint project with Archer Daniels Midland Company and Daimler AG to develop jatropha as a biofuel.
Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals is divided into two business units - General Medicine and Specialty Medicine.
Women's healthcare is an example of a General Medicine business unit. Bayer Pharma produces the birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin. Both pills use a newer type of progesterone hormone called drospirenone in combination with estrogen. Yaz is advertised as a treatment for premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and moderate acne. Other key products include the cancer drug Nexavar, the multiple sclerosis drug Betaferon/Betaseron and the blood-clotting drug, Kogenate.
An example of a Specialty Medicine Business Unit is Diagnostic Imaging. Contrast agents from this unit helps play a crucial role in precise and early diagnosis and the selection of optimal treatment. Diagnostic imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound are used to make tissues and organs visible in their natural position inside the body along with contrast. Work is also focused on the development of tracers for positron emission tomography (PET). The PET tracer Florbetaben in Bayer's pipeline makes it possible to recognize beta Amyloid, one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, with high accuracy very early on and while the patient is still alive.
Due to cost factors, though, the company has decided to cut back its sponsorship of its top sports teams in most areas. The sponsoring agreements with first and second-division teams in basketball, team handball, and volleyball, as well as in olympic-level athletics and fencing, will be terminated in 2008 or 2010. Despite their many successes (multiple German national championships, as well as numerous Olympic medals), they are not considered to be valuable enough as a marketing tool in terms of their cost-to-benefit ratio. Only the very "telegenic" football (soccer) team, whose marketing value is very high due the exposure in the media and the popularity of the sport itself, will continue to be supported as in the past. General sponsoring of sport for youth and for handicapped people will also be continued as in the past.
Jeffreys also details Arthur Eichengrün, the Bayer chemist who first found an aspirin formulation which was tolerable in the human stomach and did not have the unpleasant side effects of nausea and gastric pain. Eichengrün also invented the name aspirin and was the first person to use the new formulation to test its safety and efficacy. However, Eichengrün was excluded from the official version of Bayer's history in 1934 because of his Jewish origin. Instead, it was claimed by Bayer that aspirin was "discovered" by an "Aryan" scientist, Felix Hoffman, to alleviate the sufferings of his rheumatic father. Bayer AG publishes beliefs in the latter.
Jeffreys' claims are widely reflected in other publications and official records, although they are also disputed in other publications.
It has also been documented that aspirin compounds were successfully synthesized by various other scientists or groups thereof in the years between 1848–1869, long before Bayer's claims. This fact led to various patent litigations in the early 20th century.
More specifically, the genetically engineered rice has an herbicide-resistance trait. These forms of rice are commonly referred to among US rice growers as, Liberty Link rice 601 or LL 601. Approximately 100 varieties of rice are produced primarily in the following six states: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and California. The US rice crop is valued at approximately $1.88 billion annually. In 2005, approximately 80% of the rice exported from the US was of the long grain variety, the variety contaminated.
French and Nova Scotian beekeepers claim Bayer's seed treatment imidacloprid kills honeybees. France has since issued a provisional ban on the use of imidacloprid for corn seed treatment pending further action. A consortium of U.S. beekeepers filed a civil suit against Bayer CropScience for alleged losses.
:"After 1978, there were four major companies in the United States engaged in the manufacture, production and sale of Factor VIII and IX: Armour Pharmaceutical Company, Bayer Corporation and its Cutter Biological division, Baxter Healthcare and its Hyland Pharmaceutical division and Alpha Therapeutic Corporation, which have been or are defendants in certain lawsuits.
:The plaintiffs allege that the companies manufactured and sold blood factor products as beneficial "medicines" that were, in fact of likely to be contaminated with HIV and/or HCV. This resulted in the mass infection and/or deaths of thousands of haemophiliacs worldwide.
:It is believed that three of these companies, Alpha, Baxter, and Cutter, recruited and paid donors from high risk populations, including prisoners (i.e. prison-based collections), intravenous drug users, and plasma centers with predominantly homosexual donors, esp. in cities with large populations thereof, to obtain blood plasma used for the production of Factor VIII and IX. Plaintiffs allege that these companies failed to exclude donors, as mandated by federal law, with a history of viral hepatitis. Such testing could have substantially reduced the likelihood of plasma containing HIV and/ or HCV entering plasma pools."
Category:Biotechnology companies Category:Chemical companies of Germany Category:Multinational companies Category:Pharmaceutical companies of Germany Category:Companies established in 1863 Category:IG Farben Category:Nanotechnology companies Category:Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Category:Nutrition Category:German brands Category:Leverkusen Category:Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia
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