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BUSINESS A25
Monday 4 April 2016
Retooled German conglomerate Bayer expands US business
LINDA A. JOHNSON 7 percent last year to $520
million worldwide.
AP Business Writer Pain relievers and vitamins
aren’t sexy, but they have
WHIPPANY, N.J. (AP) The appeal: Development
costs are low, advertising
German conglomerate can quickly boost sales,
products attract few law-
that invented aspirin over suits compared to prescrip-
tion drugs, and they sell
a century ago wants to steadily for decades.
Bayer now markets 170
take over much more of consumer health products,
17 with annual sales top-
your medicine cabinet. ping $100 million.
Those include Bayer’s own
Bayer AG is boosting its One A Day and Flintstones
vitamins, Aleve pain reliev-
presence and brand in the er, Alka-Seltzer and Phillips’
Colon Health, plus former
U.S., the world’s biggest Merck products including
Claritin, Coppertone and
medicine market. Bayer is Dr. Scholl’s foot products.
The expanded consumer
increasing everything from health portfolio now holds
more prized eye-level su-
marketing and research permarket and pharmacy
shelf space,
operations in the U.S. to the which boosts sales. Bayer
now markets the former
number of its nonprescrip- Merck brands worldwide,
which helped it increase
tion medicines in pharma- total consumer health
sales 30 percent last year.
cies and grocery stores.
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
The U.S. expansion is part Bayer hopes its newest
medicines cancer drugs
of the 153-year-old com- Xofigo and Stivarga, Xarel-
to for preventing blood
pany’s transformation clots, Eyelea for prevent-
ing blindness and Adem-
from a chemical-and-dye pas for high blood pressure
in lungs will reinvigorate its
manufacturer, a business it U.S. prescription drug busi-
ness. That business had
spun off last year, to a pure declined following Bayer’s
2001 recall of a choles-
“life sciences” company terol drug linked to patient
deaths.
focused on the health of
people, pets and plants.
“I hope that over the next
few years, people will learn Phil Blake, President, Bayer Corporation, poses for The Associated Press in Whippany, N.J. “I hope
that over the next few years, people will learn that Bayer is more than aspirin,” said Blake.
that Bayer is more than as-
(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
pirin,” Phil Blake, Bayer’s
U.S. president and head
of pharmaceuticals for the areas rivals have mostly been hiring hundreds of sci-
abandoned despite huge entists, factory workers and
Americas, said in an inter- unmet need and millions of salespeople, and enlarging CONSUMER HEALTH
patients: heart disease and or building new research A key part of Bayer’s U.S.
view at its U.S. headquar- women’s health. labs, offices and medicine strategy is expanding its
Bayer is doing more re- factories. consumer health business.
ters in Whippany, New Jer- search collaborations in It funds a San Francisco That’s been driven by its
the U.S., like its deal with “incubator” housing start- 2014 purchase of Merck
sey. Johns Hopkins University ups developing experi- & Co.’s consumer health
to develop medicines for mental medicines and re- unit for $14.2 billion. The
Bayer’s strategy is a depar- vision-damaging diseases. lated technology. And it’s combinedbusiness vaulted
It also has a partnership pouring $1 billion into new to No. 1 in U.S. consumer
ture in an industry in which with Massachusetts startup greenhouses, factories for health sales, surpassing
CRISPR Therapeutics, to crop-protecting chemicals Johnson & Johnson.
companies typically swim develop new therapies for and development of seeds Iconic Bayer aspirin, pat-
blood disorders, blindness that can withstand climate ented in 1899, holds 62 per-
together in the same di- and other conditions. change. cent of U.S. market share
Across the U.S., Bayer has among aspirin brands.
rection. Bayer is focused Sales are still growing, up
on expanding in the U.S.,
while other top drugmak-
ers are concentrating on
increasing sales and man-
ufacturing in Asia and oth-
er developing markets.
The world’s 14th-biggest
drugmaker already sees
signs its strategy is pay-
ing off. Last year, Bayer’s California:
sales jumped 28 percent to
about $14 billion in the U.S. Morgan Stanley sued over complex investments
and Canada, where con-
sumer health sales soared
66 percent and prescrip- SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — to major losses by investors underlying loans or other Mark Lake said in a state-
including California’s pub- assets. ment that the company
tion drug sales jumped 23 Attorney General Kamala lic pension funds, which Specifically, the complaint does not believe the case
are responsible for the re- alleges that, from 2004 to has merit and it intends to
percent. Global revenue D. Harris has filed a lawsuit tirement security of state 2007, Morgan Stanley as- defend it vigorously.
peace officers, firefighters, sembled and sold billions “The securities at issue were
rose 12 percent, to nearly against investment bank teachers and other public of dollars in mortgage- marketed and sold to so-
employees. backed securities, many of phisticated institutional
$51 billion. Morgan Stanley for misrep- The complaint was filed this which contained risky loans investors and their perfor-
weekend in San Francisco made by Morgan Stan- mance has been consistent
“The U.S. is the most impor- resentations of complex in- Superior Court. Harris al- ley subsidiary Saxon, or by with the sector as a whole.
leges that Morgan Stanley New Century, a mortgage It is also worth noting that
tant country for Bayer,” vestments. violated state laws by con- lender that received cru- the alleged victim in this
cealing or understating the cial funding from Morgan case elected not to pursue
said global innovation The investments included risks of intricate investments Stanley. its own lawsuit against the
involving large numbers of Morgan Stanley spokesman firm,” Lake said in an email.
chief Kemal Malik. residential mortgage-
backed securities, in which
RESEARCH large pools of home loans
Bayer, based in Leverku-
sen, Germany, boosted its were packaged together
research budget last year
21 percent to $4.7 billion. and sold to investors.
And it’s doing more in two
Harris says the misrepresen-
tations contributed to the
global financial crisis and
