Bayer is also downsizing its management team in the pharmaceuticals business as part of its announced job cuts.

Responsibilities are to be streamlined and the entire commercial business in all markets will be bundled in the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer, Bayer announced on Wednesday. Sebastian Guth, who is currently responsible for the US pharmaceuticals business, is to take up this post in April. About half of the current eleven-member team will be affected by the measures, a spokesperson said. Bayer Board of Management member Stefan Oelrich will remain head of the pharmaceuticals business.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson is currently pushing ahead with the introduction of a new operating model at the pharmaceutical and agricultural group, which also involves a considerable reduction in personnel - at the expense of many managers. The Leverkusen-based company wants to reduce hierarchies, eliminate bureaucracy, streamline structures and speed up decision-making processes. Dismissals for operational reasons in Germany are only ruled out until the end of 2026.

At the beginning of February, Guth said that the number of managers in the US pharmaceutical business had already been reduced by 40 percent. Decisions that would have taken three to six months in the past would now be made almost immediately. The Group intends to bundle large parts of its oncology business unit, global marketing and Digital & Commercial Innovation as well as parts of Medical Affairs & Pharmacovigilance in the pharmaceutical business under a new organization called "Global Commercialization". From June, it will be headed by Christine Roth, who is currently responsible for the Oncology unit.

(Report by Patricia Weiß, edited by Philipp Krach. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)