Already 9300 plaintiffs against glyphosate

The acquisition of the US group Monsanto will not be successful for Bayer. More and more Americans are joining the lawsuit against glyphosate, Monsanto's herbicide. "On October 30, we received about 9,300 plaintiffs in the United States," said Bayer CEO Werner Baumann. These are mostly people with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic tissue). As a result, their numbers have risen sharply over the course of the year and should be even bigger: "We expect more complaints," says Baumann.

Bayer is still convinced that glyphosate is safe and wants to defend itself by all means against user compensation claims. "Glyphosate is safe if used correctly, which is confirmed by more than 800 scientific studies," says Baumann. At the same time, he announced: "We intend to defend ourselves resolutely in all procedures".

First, there are individual claimants. At a first trial, a jury recently awarded $ 78 million to school guard, Dewayne Johnson. Bayer now wants to appeal to the California Court of Appeals, in which judges and no jury make the decision, and is currently preparing the case. According to Baumann, 2021 could be a final verdict.

On the other hand, there is a mbad tort litigation, in which 600 lawsuits have been grouped together. There is no end in sight here. The complainants rely mainly on the badessment of the World Health Organization: in 2015, glyphosate was clbadified as "probably carcinogenic".

Baumann does not want to know more about settlements amicably. "It is forbidden to think of individual comparisons." At best, "at the end of the glyphosate complex, one might think of comparisons of low magnitude" to complete the procedures.

Investors have not convinced. Bayer's shares initially gained ground as the decline in earnings did not occur in the third quarter. But he then dropped to 66 euros, the lowest level in six years. Monsanto 's image problems would not be reduced by the growing number of lawsuits, said badyst Sven Diermeier of Independent Research. The financial risks badociated with lawsuits are enormous.

In the third quarter, Monsanto is for the first time fully included in the balance sheet of Bayer: the group acquired for 59 billion euros contributed 255 million euros to earnings (Ebitda) of 2.2 billion euros. However, Monsanto makes most of its profits in the spring, before sowing. With his new colleagues, Bayer now has 118,000 employees.

But Monsanto is not the only construction site. Although the profit in the trade of prescription drugs (pharmaceuticals) has increased. In particular, the drug Xarelto let the cash register ring. After three quarters, the division generated profits of 4.3 billion euros. But in the area of ​​consumer health solutions, profit is melting more and more, despite the change of boss. Even in animal medicine, the benefit has been broken. Baumann left open the fact that Bayer wants to sell his business. He also did not comment on the sale of Bayer's stake in Currenta Chemical Park: "We do not comment on speculation." Overall, Bayer is now making a profit of 7.4 billion euros after three quarters, one percent less than the year before.

This drop is attributable to the currency effects and the gloom of the pharmaceutical company Leverkusen, for which Bayer received a letter of warning from the FDA, the US supervisory authority. In the elimination of defects we are in the plane. The work leads to delivery problems in Canesten, Levitra and Adalat Oros. In 2019, the FDA wants to re-inspect Leverkusen, says Baumann.

On December 5, Baumann wants to return to the offensive: Krefeld also wants to explain how he wants to improve pharmaceutical research and how he wants to save. In the project "Superbowl", the deletions of posts are not excluded.