Our Vision & Strategy
A growing and aging world population and the increasing strain on nature’s ecosystems are among the major challenges facing humanity. As one of the world’s leading companies in the fields of health and nutrition, we are able to play a key role in devising solutions to tackle these challenges. The COVID-19 crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have reminded us of the importance of health and nutrition and underlined our systemic relevance.
Guided by our purpose “Science for a better life”, we deliver breakthrough innovations in healthcare and agriculture. We contribute to a world in which diseases are not only treated but effectively prevented or cured, in which people can take better care of their own health needs, and in which enough agriculture products are produced while conserving our planet’s natural resources. That’s because at Bayer, growth and sustainability go hand in hand. In short, we are working to make our vision of “Health for all, Hunger for none” a reality. Our strategy operationalizes our vision, as we look to achieve long-term profitable growth and make a positive contribution to society and the environment.
We focus on four strategic levers:
1. We develop innovative products and solutions and leverage cutting-edge research to address unmet societal challenges. We are also continuing to drive the digitalization of our entire value chain.
2. We drive the operational performance of our business by optimizing our resource allocation and cost base.
3. Sustainability is an integral part of our business strategy, operations and compensation system. Through our businesses, we contribute significantly to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We also pursue resolute, science-based climate action along our entire value chain.
4. As a global leader in health and nutrition, we continue to develop our business. We create value with strategy-based resource allocation focused on profitable growth. We are active in regulated and highly profitable businesses that are driven by innovation and in which we have the objective to grow ahead of the competition.
Business Strategies
These four value levers underpin the strategies of our divisions:
The landscape is changing in agriculture: Increased pressures due to climate change combined with a growing population have created a pivotal moment in how our customers provide food, fuel and textile fibers for a world that needs to learn to live within planetary boundaries. These challenges have spurred rapid, disruptive changes in the industry, intensifying competition across the value chain, creating new players and opening up new sales opportunities. Our mission is to transform agriculture and drive a more sustainable food system.
The differentiators in this dynamic environment are clear: the speed and scale of innovation and a focus on sustainable results for our customers. With a leading innovation pipeline across Seeds & Traits, Crop Protection and Digital Farming, a deep digital ecosystem, a global footprint, and a multitude of partnerships, we are currently the market leader and are very well positioned moving forward. At the same time, we are evaluating the opportunities for expansion into attractive new business fields.
Our digital connectivity strengthens our proximity to our customers, accelerating innovation, automating processes and increasing the productivity of our R&D pipeline. We are digitally connecting farms, optimizing input use and creating an industry-wide ecosystem aimed at unlocking new income streams for our customers and our own business by pioneering new, sustainable business models. We provide smart and integrated approaches to our customers in order to meet the requirements of the future. Our goal is to grow faster than the market and deliver superior returns to our competitors through tailored solutions such as the Smart Corn System. Moreover, we aim to achieve digitally enabled sales by the end of the decade.
We are pursuing ambitious sustainability targets. By 2030, we aim to reduce the environmental impact of Bayer’s crop protection by 30% globally, decrease field greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in the most emitting cropping systems that we serve, and improve the livelihoods of 100 million smallholders.
Supported by our digital application FieldView™, the Bayer Carbon Initiative Program rewards customers such as farmers for adopting climate-smart practices, sequestering carbon at scale and creating new on-farm revenue streams. We are evolving our approach for a more sustainable ecosystem – for example with the launch of “ForGround” in the United States. “ForGround” offers a suite of resources and decision support tools to help users introduce or expand regenerative agricultural practices to make fields more weather-resilient and productive.
Smallholder farmers are both a fast-growing market that we are committed to serving and a critical lever to ensure food security and quality of life in their communities. That’s why we continue to expand the Better Life Farming program: With around 2,500 centers operating in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico and Honduras, these centers provide smallholder farmers with products, education, financing and support to help their businesses thrive. As our work with smallholder farmers continues, it will underpin our growing business with this customer segment.
Throughout the world, an aging population continues to drive the incidence of chronic diseases and the increased occurrence of multiple conditions affecting patients’ quality of life. The convergence of biology and data science will be a key element for innovation at Pharmaceuticals. Digital technologies can transform the way healthcare is delivered, while cell and gene therapy has the potential to cure severe diseases.
We are helping to drive medical progress through our focus on researching, developing and marketing innovative medicines. Our short- and mid-term growth will be further fueled by key products such as Eylea™, Nubeqa™, Verquvo™ and Kerendia™, as well as late-stage R&D pipeline candidates, including elinzanetant and asundexian. We are enhancing the benefits for patients and generating added value in our product portfolio with a series of life cycle management activities, including the development of a high-dose formulation for Eylea™. To safeguard long-term growth, we continue to invest in R&D.
We are continuously strengthening our technology platforms. Building on our acquisitions of the US companies BlueRock Therapeutics LP, and Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), we are further expanding our cell and gene therapy activities. By entering a partnership with US-based Mammoth Biosciences Inc., we have secured access to novel gene-editing technology complementing our existing technology platforms. Last year’s acquisition of Vividion Therapeutics, Inc., also in the United States, strengthens our drug discovery capabilities. We are also enhancing our technological capabilities through the targeted expansion of our digital R&D infrastructure. Moreover, we are expanding our efforts to access external innovation through research collaborations and in-licensing, capturing continued growth opportunities in biologics and novel technologies.
In Oncology, we continue to build our integrated Research & Early Development organization. With our new precision molecular oncology research center in Boston-Cambridge, we will drive the development of novel targeted cancer therapies for people with unmet medical needs. Located in the Boston scientific hub, the new center will foster close collaboration with the research world and enhance our global network of academic, hospital and industry partners.
Our ambitious sustainability agenda includes improving access to medicines. We improved our ranking in the Access to Medicine Index to 9th place in 2022 (2021: 13th place), underlining our commitment to ensuring fairer access to medicines. Another focus is on improving women’s health and strengthening their role in society by helping to promote gender equality and women’s economic participation. As part of this endeavor, we are leveraging our leading position in women’s health to be able to provide 100 million women in low- and middle-income countries with access to modern contraception by 2030. In addition, we are committed to combating neglected tropical diseases and noncommunicable diseases.
Rising healthcare costs, changing demographics and increasing health awareness among consumers continue to fuel attractive long-term growth in the consumer healthcare market. A more prominent consumer focus on self-care, prevention and convenience further sharpened during the pandemic is expected to continue to drive consumption across all core Consumer Health categories and accelerate channel shifts towards e-commerce.
We provide consumers with products, services and information that empower them to improve their everyday health. Our strategy focuses on our core categories, as well as the transition of prescription medicines to nonprescription status. Our profitable growth is driven by world-class, science-based innovation with our trusted, consumer-preferred brands as well as new product launches. We are also continuously driving cost and cash productivity across the entire value chain.
We continue to accelerate our digital transformation efforts across all areas of our operations, in marketing, sales, supply chain and R&D, to improve engagement with consumers, customers and healthcare professionals while driving productivity, flexibility and resilience across our value chain. We leverage an agile innovation model and collaborate with external partners to provide consumers with innovative solutions that best address their everyday health needs. Through acquisitions and partnerships, we have gained access to new business models and capabilities to provide personalized diagnostics and treatment solutions.
We pursue ambitious sustainability targets. By 2030, we aim to expand access to self-care for 100 million people in economically or medically underserved communities. We are executing this ambition by fully embedding sustainability across our operations to offer solutions that best serve consumers, in particular those for whom self-care is the primary form of care.
