Bayer CropScience aims to triple
sales in its bioscience business unit to
around €1.4bn by 2018. To meet this
target, ‘the company is planning to
invest some €3.5bn in research and
infrastructure for its biotech and seeds
business between now and 2018,’ says
chairman Friedrich Berschauer, adding
that this does not include possible
acquisitions. Roughly 27% of sales are
currently invested in the development
of new bioscience products.
The company’s bioscience unit
currently focuses on four core crops:
canola, rice, cotton and vegetables,
but the intention is to expand this
group on a regional basis and include
additional crops, including soya beans
and cereals.
Bayer plans to launch 14 seed
varieties with innovative traits in these
core crop groups between now and
2018. In 2010, the company claims it
will become the first worldwide to offer
cotton seed with built-in tolerance to
two leading herbicides: glyphosate
and glufosinate-ammonium. This
will be followed in 2011, with cotton
seed that has protection against the
most important insect pests, and in
2012, with cotton varieties that have
a so-called ‘double-stack’, producing
two different substances against
insect pests, as well as the herbicide
tolerance.
Conventional crop protection
products will not be ignored, and the
company has set a target of bringing
to market 10 new products, with
combined peak sales potential of over
€1.25bn, between 2008 and 2018.
In 2008, the insecticide spirotetramat
and the herbicide pyrasulfotole were
launched, while in 2009, regulatory
approval has been gained, in
some countries, for the herbicide
thiencarbazone-methyl in combination
with the safener cyprosulfamide. Over
the period 2010-11, Bayer plans to
launch three fungicides: fluopyram, a
pyramide for managing problematic
diseases; bixafen, a pyrazole treatment
for cereals; and isotianil for rice, and
an alkylazine herbicide for agricultural
crops and non-agricultural applications,
like golf courses and gardens, while
three further candidates are in
advanced stages of development.
Overall, Bayer CropScience saw
its H1 2009 sales rise by 4.8% to just
under €4bn, despite unfavourable
weather conditions in some of the
major growing regions. Geographically,
growth in North America, Europe and
Asia was driven by products based on
new ingredients. Sales of fungicides,
however, declined slightly in all
regions, due to a lower disease burden.
There was a more modest start to Q3,
with lower selling prices for wheat and
corn, unfavourable weather conditions
in Europe and India, and the relatively
late start of the season in Argentina,
matched by decreasing demand in
the US.
On an annual basis, Bayer expects
the overall market to continue to grow
at 3%/year up to 2018, taking it from
€48bn in 2008 to €66bn in 2018.
While the company is expecting above
average growth of 6%/year in the plant
biotechnology sector, crop protection is
expected to see more modest growth of
1-2%/year.
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