Bayer's First Pipeline Presentation: Part 1

Bayer of Germany has given its first ever pharmaceutical product pipeline presentation to the press, and revealed a pipeline with some depth, but perhaps too few truly innovative products featuring in the near-term outlook. The meeting was held in the wake of the restructuring of Bayer's business into discrete product development units governed by a single product development center, which was announced in April (Marketletters passim).

Pol Bamelis, chairman of the board for research and development at Bayer, said that the company's R&D budget for 1995 is one of the highest in the chemical industry at 3.3 billion Deutschemarks ($2.3 billion; 7% of sales). Health care research will take half of this total (1.6 billion marks), and pharmaceutical R&D will make up 83% of this total. A listing (incomplete, according to Bayer) of the compounds in clinical testing was presented at the meeting and is detailed below.

Bayer has also restructured its R&D efforts by pulling out of some core areas, such as hypertension. The main focus areas are now rheumatology, metabolic diseases, central nervous system diseases, biological products, anti-infectives, and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Research into rheumatology, metabolism, CNS and genes is based in Bayer's laboratories in West Haven in the USA, while the newly-opened facility in Kyoto, Japan, is focusing on allergies and autoimmune diseases. In Wuppertal, Germany, the main research is on cardiovascular disease and anti-infectives.