Bayer CropScience investing Euro3.5bn in biotech and seed business

Monheim, Germany – Bayer CropScience is to accelerate growth in its biotech and seed business with particular focus on its seed and plant traits operations in the coming years. The intention, it said, is to more than treble sales in the BioScience segment to around Euro1.4 billion by 2018.

The company is planning to invest some Euro3.5 billion in research and infrastructure for its biotech and seed business between now and 2018 said its chairman Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Friedrich Berschauer, chairman of Bayer CropScience AG’s Board of Management, at the company’s annual press conference. The figure, he emphasised, does not include possible acquisitions.

“The growth strategy revolves around three elements: chemical crop protection, plant traits, and high-quality seed. We are developing from a classical supplier of crop protection products into a supplier of integrated solutions for farmers which comprise not only products but technologies and services as well,” Berschauer explained.

In the classical crop protection business, the company has set itself the goal of bringing to market between 2008 and 2012 ten new crop protection active substances with a combined peak sales potential of over Euro1.25 billion – previously the target sales figure was above EUR 1 billion.

Following the launch of the insecticide spirotetramat and the herbicide pyrasulfotole in 2008, the company has this year gained regulatory approval for the new herbicide thiencarbazone-methyl in combination with the safener cyprosulfamide in first countries. Three fungicides – fluopyram, bixafen and isotianil – are scheduled for launch in 2010 and 2011. In addition, three further candidates, among them a biological pest-control product, are at an advanced stage of development.

Bayer CropScience’s position in the worldwide bioscience market is centred on its four core crops; canola, rice, cotton and vegetables. It now aims to expand the portfolio on a regional basis in the coming years and to include further crops and has begun research into improved cereal varieties with increased yields and greater resistance to adverse weather conditions. The company’s research is also focusing increasingly on soybeans.

Bayer CropScience is currently investing the equivalent of roughly 27% of sales in the development of new bioscience products – a figure that puts it among the leaders in the industry in terms of research intensity. Almost 1,000 bioscience researchers and breeders are working on over 50 projects.