Bayer

Bayer is a publicly-traded, multinational company headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany. Founded over 150 years ago, its core competencies presently lie in the life science fields of health care and agriculture.

The company's life science unit has 3 main divisions, pharmaceuticals, consumer health, and crop science. It also has an animal health unit as well as a corporate functions business services unit. Also, Bayer has a 60% stake in Currenta, a company offering services for the chemical industry, including utility supply, waste management, infrastructure, safety, security, analytics, and vocational training.

In terms of sales, Bayer's pharmaceuticals segment is the largest in the company. The focus of this segment is primarily in the therapeutic areas of cardiology, oncology, gynecology, hematology, and ophthalmology. Principal research centers are located in Germany, the United States, Finland, and Norway.

The consumer health division focuses on everyday healthcare, where the company has a portfolio of over 170 brands to treat minor illnesses. The products are in areas such as digestive health, allergies, skin conditions, pain management, nutritional supplements, and common colds.

Bayer's crop sciences division focuses on delivering solutions to farmers in areas such as crop protection, seeds, and traits, and digital farming. In June 2018, Bayer completed its acquisition of Monsanto for approximately $63 billion. In connection with regulatory approval processes, the company agreed to divest portions of its businesses to BASF.

The company's animal health unit develops and markets products and solutions for the prevention and treatment of diseases in companion and farm animals. In November 2018, Bayer announced its plan to sell the unit, which is estimated to be worth up to €7 billion, along with several other brands. The move is estimated to result in about 12,000 job cuts worldwide.

Bayer's business services unit is an in-house center for business solutions and business support process. Its portfolio ranges from the development and implementation of IT-based solutions and design, building, and execution of end-to-end process operations to in-house management consulting.

Bayer's LifeHubs are co-working, learning, and incubation spaces managed by Bayer. They are intended to be used by startups and prospective startup companies as a space to collaborate, learn more about industries and industry-specific challenges, and as a general co-working and meeting space. They have locations in Boston, California, Lyon, Berlin, Singapore, Japan, and Reading.

The Bayer CoLaborator program is a startup incubation program. They offer startups co-working spaces located within their LifeHubs and elsewhere. They focus on engagement between life-science startups and Bayer researchers. They have CoLaborator locations in Berlin, Kobe, Moscow, and San Francisco for pharmaceutical startups. They have a location in West Sacramento for crop science startups.

Bayer has supported myAgro, a non-profit investing in and providing services for the development of smallholder farmers. Their initial focus was in Mali. Part of myAgro's work has been enabling farmers to save small amounts for seed and fertilizer through a cellphone for those unable to have a bank account. They also work on nutrition and hygiene seminars and deworming programs.