© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Emblem and flags of Bayer AG are pictured exterior a plant of the German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal, Germany August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Picture
By Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Bayer (OTC:)’s strategic assessment will take into account a probably more durable outlook for money flows, its CEO mentioned on Tuesday, after the German conglomerate suffered a serious drug improvement setback.
The group late on Sunday aborted a big late-stage trial testing a brand new anti-clotting drug as a consequence of lack of efficacy, throwing its most promising improvement undertaking doubtful, and including to litigation and debt issues.
“Anything that effects future cash flows negatively just makes that a little tighter,” CEO Invoice Anderson mentioned in an analyst name on Tuesday.
“The impact of these recent events does not change what our strategic options are. It just may mean that some of those conditions are a little tighter,” mentioned Anderson, who has mentioned he’s contemplating a break-up of the maker of prescription drugs, non-prescription therapies and merchandise for farmers.
He gave the instance {that a} potential sale of the buyer merchandise unit to a rival within the business would generate additional cash, and quicker, than a partial spin-off on the inventory market and gradual sale of any remaining shares over time.
The top of prescription drugs, Stefan Oelrich, mentioned within the name that when reviewing the halted trial his workforce was shocked by a “marked difference” in efficacy of Bayer’s experimental anticoagulant asundexian compared to Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:) and Pfizer (NYSE:)’s established Eliquis.
The height gross sales potential of greater than 5 billion euros can be revised decrease, however plans to carry the product to market in 2026 remained in place, albeit for a smaller affected person group, Oelrich added.
