Company Overview

Bayer is the pharmaceutical company next door, the name made familiar by trusted products such as Bayer Aspirin, Alka Seltzer, Bactine, Milk of Magnesia, and Flintstones Vitamins. Bayer Corporation is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of German company the Bayer Group and is responsible for a third of the parent company’s total revenue. Bayer’s business focus isn’t confined to the consumer care and pharmaceutical product market. It operates through three divisions and an internal service company, and manufactures plastics, coatings, diagnostics, and agriculture products.

Some of the company’s best-known drugs include the antibiotic Cipro, for which the patent expired in 2003;l Adalat, which treats hypertension; Avelox, an antibiotic; and Levitra, an impotence drug.

Bayer has had its share of bad news in the past few years. In 2002, the company had to pull its cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol from the market after it was implicated in 100 patient deaths. In mid-2005, the company paid $614 million to settle 1,683 lawsuits. In late 2007, the FDA took the drug Trasylol off the market. Just this year, a New Jersey court ruled against the validity of its patent for Yasmin, an oral contraceptive.

But the company has proven it can roll with the punches. In 2006, Bayer announced that it would be acquiring all remaining outstanding shares of Schering AG. Bayer did so by means of a squeeze-out, for just under 4 percent of the share capital; by year’s end, it had renamed its German based pharmaceuticals company Bayer Schering Pharama AG.