Helge Wehmeier, then chairman of Bayer`s board of directors, publicly apologized to Elie Wiesel in 1995 for the company`s actions during World War II (1939-1945) and the Holocaust. [38] IG Farben, Bayer`s parent company, used slave labor in the factories it built in German concentration camps, including the Monowitz concentration camp (known as Auschwitz III), which is part of the Auschwitz camp complex in German-occupied Poland. [39] [40] In 1943, nearly half of IG Farben`s 330,000 employees were slave laborers or conscripts, including 30,000 Auschwitz prisoners. [41] In May 2016, Bayer offered $62 billion to the US seed company Monsanto. [117] Shortly after Bayer`s offer, Monsanto rejected the takeover bid and demanded a higher price. [118] In September 2016, Monsanto accepted a $66 billion offer from Bayer. [119] In order to obtain regulatory approval, Bayer agreed, in a series of transactions, to divest a significant portion of its current agricultural assets to BASF. [120] [121] [122] [123] The agreement was approved by the European Union on March 21, 2018[124][125] and in the United States on May 20, 2018. [126] Sale closed June 7, 2018. [127] The Monsanto brand has been discontinued; the products are marketed under the name Bayer. [128] On September 16, 2019, Bayer completed the merger of Monsanto India with the approval of the National Company Law Tribunal.
[129] In 2003, Bayer AG was restructured into a holding company in order to separate its operational and strategic management. The group`s core business has been transformed into limited liability companies, each controlled by Bayer AG. These companies were: Bayer CropScience AG; Bayer HealthCare AG; Bayer MaterialScience AG and Bayer Chemicals AG as well as the three service companies Bayer Technology Services GmbH, Bayer Business Services GmbH and Bayer Industry Services GmbH & Co. OHG. In 2016, the company began a second restructuring to ease the transition to a life sciences company. [132] With the divestiture of the chemicals business in 2004 and the liquidation of the Materials division until mid-2016, Bayer will retain the four base units listed below. [133] [134] Bayer is a publicly traded and publicly traded pharmaceutical, consumer health, animal health and plant science company headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany. Monsanto is a publicly traded global supplier of agricultural products headquartered in St.
Louis, Missouri. Heroin (diacetylmorphine), now illegal as an addictive drug, was introduced as a non-addictive substitute for morphine,[22] and trademarked and marketed by Bayer from 1898 to 1910 as a cough suppressant and over-the-counter treatment for other common ailments, including pneumonia and tuberculosis. [23] Bayer scientists were not the first to produce heroin, but the company was a leader in marketing. [24] Heroin was a trademark of Bayer until after the First World War. [25] Bayer`s director of pharmacology did not want the drug to have an „overly complicated name,” so Bayer opted for heroic, the German word for heroic. [26] Bayer Chemicals AG (with the exception of H.C. Starck and Wolff Walsrode) merged with certain components of the polymer business to form the new Lanxess company on July 1, 2004; Lanxess has been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since early 2005. [154] Bayer HealthCare`s Diagnostics division was acquired by Siemens Medical Solutions in January 2007. [155] In November 2010, Bayer AG signed an agreement to acquire Bomac Group, an Auckland-based animal health company.
[107] Bayer partnered with Algeta to develop the radiation drug Xofigo and acquired the company in 2014 for approximately $2.9 billion. [108] In 2014, Bayer agreed to buy Merck`s consumer healthcare business for $14.2 billion, which would allow Bayer to control brands such as Claritin, Coppertone and Dr. Scholl`s. Bayer would rank second in the world for over-the-counter drugs. [109] In June 2015, Bayer agreed to sell its diabetes business to Panasonic Healthcare Holdings for a fee of $1.02 billion. [110] In 2019, a federal jury in San Francisco, California, sided with Bayer in a $600 million class action lawsuit alleging that the company misinformed consumers by promoting its One A Day vitamins to support heart health, a powerful immune system, and boost users` energy. The lawsuit was first filed as a federal class action lawsuit; In 2017, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled that subclasses of vitamin buyers in Florida, New York and California could trade together. [179] In August 2018, two months after the acquisition of Monsanto,[166] a U.S.
company. The jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million to a school attendant who claimed his non-Hodgkin lymphoma was caused by the regular use of Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide made by Monsanto. [167] Following the decision, the market capitalization of Bayer`s shares fell by approximately 14%, or $14 billion. [168] The company filed a complaint on September 18, 2018. [169] On May 13, 2019, a U.S. Supreme Court judge ordered Bayer to pay more than $2.5 billion in damages to a couple in California who both suffered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and which were later reduced to $87 million on appeal. [170]) Bayer played a key role in the post-war economic miracle and quickly regained its position as one of the world`s largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies. In 2006, the company acquired Schering, in 2014, the consumer business of Merck & Co.
with brands such as Claritin, Coppertone and Dr. Scholl`s, and in 2018, acquired Monsanto, a leading manufacturer of genetically modified plants, for $63 billion. [9] Bayer CropScience develops genetically modified crops and pesticides. Bayer`s Hatem Ismail outlines the company`s important work to help Egypt achieve its ambitious Vision 2030 transformation goals. Its significant presence in the country in innovative pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter and over-the-counter drugs. Bayer CropScience offers products in the areas of crop protection (pesticides), non-agricultural pest management, seeds and plant biotechnology. In addition to the classical agrochemical activity, it deals with the genetic engineering of food. [135] In 2002, Bayer AG acquired Aventis (now part of Sanofi) CropScience and merged it with its own agrochemical division (Bayer Crop Protection or Crop Protection) to form Bayer CropScience; Belgian biotech company Plant Genetic Systems became part of Bayer through the acquisition of Aventis. [135] Also in 2002, Bayer AG acquired the Dutch seed company Nunhems, which at the time was one of the five largest seed companies in the world. [136] [137]:270 In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Bayer CropScience`s genetically modified LibertyLink rice had contaminated the U.S. rice supply.
Shortly after the public learned of the contamination, the EU banned imports of US products.