Bayer Innovation GmbH: Bringing new project ideas to market maturity

07-01-2004: To further strengthen the innovative power of the Bayer Group, the management holding company has established Bayer Innovation GmbH (BIG), headquartered in Düsseldorf. An independently operating company, BIG is to identify and evaluate innovative project ideas, develop them into workable business concepts and then sell them either to companies within the Bayer Group or to third parties. "The new company is an important instrument which complements the existing R&D activities of our subgroups," explains Bayer CEO Werner Wenning. "It will not only focus on innovative products, but also on completely new fields of business outside our current portfolio."

While the fields to be investigated by Bayer Innovation GmbH are expected to correspond to the Bayer Group's core competencies, they may sometimes be outside the previous business activities of the subgroups.

Bayer Innovation GmbH will be steered by the management holding company via a shareholder's committee, which will be supported in its duties by an advisory board made up of external members. The shareholder's committee will be headed by Dr. Udo Oels, Bayer Board member with responsibility for Innovation, Technology and Environment.

The executive board of the new subsidiary is made up of Professor Dr. Fred-Robert Heiker, who until assuming this position headed Corporate Development in the Corporate Center at Bayer AG, and Ralph Arnold. "We have set ourselves the goal of complementing Bayer's business portfolio and entering new, high-growth markets with innovative products," says Professor Heiker, chairman of the executive board, outlining the company's tasks. The first projects are in the field of medical technology, where the aim is to combine Bayer's expertise in health care and polymers, and in the optimization of optical data storage media for secure systems.