(AOF) – The German chemical group Bayer is working on an alternative to glyphosate, its very controversial herbicide. “We are already testing this new substance on real plants,” group boss Bill Anderson told the newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS). “Our goal is to bring the new product to market in 2028, just four years from now.” According to him, this is the first revolutionary innovation in this field in 30 years.
Glyphosate was developed by the American company Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer in 2018 for more than $60 billion. The German group has since been faced with an avalanche of legal proceedings and thousands of compensation claims due to the health consequences of its product.
Glyphosate was reauthorized in the European Union for ten years at the end of 2023, to the great dismay of environmental associations, which announced new legal actions.
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Nothing is going well for German chemistry
German chemicals, very dependent on Russian gas, are in difficulty. Following sluggish sales in the automotive sector and falling demand in construction, production is down 8.5% in 2022, with overall turnover down 1.6% to 63.1 Billions of Euro’s. Specialty chemistry is doing better. On the other hand, the rate of utilization of production capacities in basic chemicals has slowed significantly to reach less than 80%. The third German industrial sector is tempted by relocation to the United States, where energy costs are much lower. With the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States has established an environment appropriate to current challenges.
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Oncology, priority of pharmaceutical giants
Sanofi’s stock market disappointment recorded at the end of October 2023 underlines the new direction for the group, which has now set oncology as its number 1 priority. Efforts in this segment, where therapies are advancing the fastest, notably involve investments in R&D which weigh on profitability. Sanofi therefore announced a drop in its earnings per share in 2024 and the abandonment of its objective of an operating margin of 32% in 2025. Merck has just unveiled a new alliance. It will pay up to $22 billion to the Japanese group Daiichi Sankyo as part of a partnership on experimental cancer treatments. While some experts estimate that the United States represents nearly half of global oncology spending (drugs and treatments), or $196 billion in 2022, Chinese spending in this area has more than doubled in five years, going from 5 to 11.8 billion dollars.