The pharmaceutical and agrochemical group Bayer suffers in its agricultural division from high manufacturing costs and currency fluctuations.

Although the Leverkusen-based Dax group was able to increase sales of its new products for plant protection and against fungal attack and can currently call for higher prices for its glyphosate-containing weed killer Roundup, the operating profit of the agricultural division has fallen significantly.

The Ebitda before special items fell by more than a quarter, which also caused the operating profit at the group level to fall by 10.6 percent to around 2.58 billion euros.

Analysts had expected more, which is why the stock initially crashed by more than 5 percent on Thursday morning.

Jonas Jansen

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

  • Follow I follow

Basically, however, Bayer is more optimistic about the year, and the Group is increasing its forecast for sales and adjusted earnings per share.

“We expect all of our businesses to continue to have positive sales momentum,” said Bayer Management Board Chairman Werner Baumann.

The main impetus comes from the pharmaceutical business.

"We have had great success in developing and launching drugs, some of which have blockbuster potential," said Baumann.

Blockbusters are drugs that have a sales potential of more than one billion dollars a year.

These include, for example, the newly launched cancer drug Nubeqa, which Baumann said exceeds expectations.

Xarelto and Eylea deliver

The anticoagulant Xarelto, for example, delivers reliable results, with sales increasing by 10 percent to 1.16 billion euros in the second quarter, mainly due to increased sales in China and Russia. Because the restrictions caused by the corona pandemic have subsided, there were also more treatments in ophthalmology, the eye drug Eylea increased sales by a quarter to 711 million euros. Sales of over-the-counter medicines also increased significantly, primarily due to the high demand for dietary supplements and the strong allergy season, especially in America.

In the pharmaceutical division, Bayer has recently invested more money in research and development, primarily to strengthen its cell and gene therapy. This should deliver "potentially groundbreaking medical innovations in clinical development", for example for the treatment of Parkinson's. In doing so, Bayer wants to make itself more independent of individual drugs, which is why the company continues to buy in diligently. Bayer announced on Thursday that it would take over the American biotechnology company Vividion Therapeutics for up to $ 2 billion.

Bayer is particularly interested in the company's research platform, which contains a library for chemical substances and new screening options, especially for proteins in cancer research and inflammatory diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome. Bayer intends to use this to develop new drugs; the acquisition is on a par with previous biotech acquisitions in America, where Bayer recently bought Blue Rock Therapeutics and Ask Bio.

At the corporate level, Bayer’s sales rose 8 percent to 10.85 billion euros in the second quarter, with all three divisions making a positive contribution. Due to the renewed provisions of 3.8 billion euros for settlements and lawsuits relating to glyphosate, the group loss is 2.3 billion euros. In the same period last year, the loss - also because of the glyphosate dispute - was more than four times as large. For the full year Bayer now expects sales of 43 billion euros, an increase of around 6 percent. The company had previously assumed revenues of 41 billion euros. With an Ebitda adjusted for special items of between 10.6 and 10.9 billion euros, this should correspond to a margin of around 25 percent. The adjusted earnings per share should be between 6 and 6.20 euros,previously the range was between 5.60 and 5.80 euros.