Bayer extends CEO contract amid 'signs of success'

Bayer's chief executive Bill Anderson looks set to keep his role until nearly the decade, as his turnaround plan for the group starts to deliver results.

Just over two years into Anderson's tenure, Bayer's board has decided to extend his contract by three years to 31st March 2029, with company chairman Norbert Winkeljohann saying: "We're starting to see some clear successes, though there's still a lot to do."

Anderson replaced Werner Baumann as Bayer's CEO on 1st April 2023, after Baumann was ousted in the wake of the group's takeover of agrochemical company Monsanto, which exposed it to expensive litigation.

A few months later, Anderson revealed a radical restructuring of what he described as a "badly broken" business, underperforming due to patent losses, litigation, debt levels, and bureaucracy. He has focused on stripping out layers of management and other staffing reductions to cut costs, a drive to strengthen Bayer's pharma pipeline, revamping its crop science business, and reducing litigation risks.

In a statement to announce the extension of Anderson's contract, Bayer said it now has 11,000 fewer positions since his turnaround plan kicked in, now running at around 90,000, with the number of management layers "roughly halved." That has put the company on course to meet its target of carving €2 billion (around $2.3 billion) off its expenses in 2026.

Anderson said in a LinkedIn post that he was "humbled" by the trust placed in him by Bayer's board and pledged to focus on "making Bayer the leanest, fastest, most innovative life sciences company through our bold operating system."

Earlier this year, the CEO said recent product launches should help Bayer to offset the considerable financial exposure stemming from the loss of patent protection on blockbuster anticoagulant Xarelto (rivaroxaban).

Those include mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) Kerendia (finerenone) for chronic kidney disease and now heart failure, alongside prostate cancer therapy Nubeqa (darolutamide), BridgeBio-partnered Beyonttra (acoramidis) for transthyretin amyloidosis cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), and just-approved menopause therapy Lynkuet (elinzanetant).

Anderson said that 2025 will be the toughest year in the restructuring, but should be followed in 2026 with a return to growth, while the group's pipeline of 20-plus clinical-stage programmes will build for the long term.

"Bill […] is charting the right course and has initiated a comprehensive turnaround programme in an important phase for Bayer," said Winkeljohann. "Under his leadership, the company will resolutely continue this path."

Bayer's share price has staged a bit of a recovery in 2025 after falling to lows in 2024 not seen in around two decades, but it is still trading at a fraction of the highs achieved in the mid-2010s.