Bayer: A history
By GMWatch,
GMWatch
| 04. 19. 2022
How a chemical and pharmaceutical giant with an appalling record of corporate crimes became a key player in the development, commercialization and sale of GM crops
Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical giant founded in Barmen, Germany in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer and his partner, Johann Friedrich Weskott. Today it has its headquarters in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The merger between Bayer and Monsanto in June of 2018 led many commentators to say the German firm had sullied its reputation by taking over a company consistently shown in polls to be among the most hated in America. But Bayer's own corporate record also bears little scrutiny.
A look at the company's history may, in fact, help to explain how Bayer thought it could take over a firm up to its neck in controversies and court cases and just rebrand Monsanto's products as its own and rake in the profits. After all, as we shall see, for more than a century Bayer has been walking away from corporate crimes from which it has successfully profited.
The product that Bayer is perhaps most famous for is aspirin, which it trademarked in 1899. Bayer's official history has credited Felix Hoffmann with its invention in 1897. But according to Arthur Eichengrün, another chemist employed by Bayer at the time, he...
Related Articles
By Meagan Parrish, PharmaVoice | 10.10.2025
When CEO Ben Lamm steps into the spotlight, it’s usually to talk about his efforts bringing extinct animals back to life. Once a far-flung idea, Lamm and the company he heads, Colossal Biosciences, have proven they can pull it off...
By Aleks Krotoski, The Guardian | 09.28.2025
Imagine you’re the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world. You have everything you could want at your disposal: power, influence, money. But, the problem is, your time at the top is fleeting. I’m not...
GeneWatch UK has prepared a briefing on the genetic modification of nature for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Congress in October 2025
The upcoming Congress claims to be “where the world comes together to set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.” A major concern for those on the outside is that the Congress may advance plans to develop and encourage the use of synthetic biology in nature conservation. This could at first glance sound like...
By Peter de Kruijff, ABC News | 09.16.2025
Do you wonder where your meat comes from? Maybe it is organic, wild harvested, or farmed.
Or perhaps it was designed in a lab.
Faster-growing fish, heat-tolerant cows and disease-resistant pigs are among a new class of animals that are...