Bayer shares with historic price crash
Bayer loses another glyphosate trial in the USA. And now the company also has to discontinue a study on an important drug. Investors don't like this at all. Bayer shares plummet to their lowest level in decades.
The recent run of bad luck continues for the pharmaceutical and agricultural group Bayer. In addition to another setback in the glyphosate litigation in the USA, the Leverkusen-based company has now also suffered a bitter defeat in research with its most important drug hopeful, asundexiane. Investors on the stock market reacted with shock. Bayer shares plummeted by almost 19 percent to a 14-1/2 year low in early trading on the leading Dax index. This is the biggest fall in the share price for at least 32 years. The stock market value of the aspirin manufacturer shrank by around 7.6 billion euros as a result.
"This is a severe setback for Bayer. Asundexiane was the pearl in Bayer's pharmaceutical pipeline and without the active ingredient, the pharmaceutical division is left without sustainable growth," said fund manager Markus Manns from major shareholder Union Investment. Shaping the new beginning will therefore be a Herculean task for CEO Bill Anderson."
Bayer had announced last night that it was terminating a crucial Phase 3 trial with asundexiane prematurely due to lack of efficacy on the recommendation of an independent monitoring committee. In the 18,000-participant study, the drug was compared with the anticoagulant Eliquis from competitors Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer in patients with atrial fibrillation and stroke risk. Asundexian was shown to be less effective than the control arm of the study. The company wants to analyze the data further in order to better understand the results.
For Bayer, the novel anticoagulant is the greatest hope in its pharmaceutical research. According to earlier statements, the company believes that Asundexian alone has a peak sales potential of more than five billion euros, which is more than any other of its drugs. Bayer did not wish to comment on this forecast when asked. The drug should be ready for the market in 2026 and, according to initial data, led to significantly lower bleeding rates than the competitor product Eliquis.
It was only at the beginning of November that Bayer expanded the study program with the drug, which comprises a total of almost 30,000 patients in over 40 countries. Recruitment of participants for this study for patients with atrial fibrillation with no current treatment option with the currently available anticoagulant tablets has not yet begun. It was supposed to complement the now discontinued study. The Phase 3 Stroke trial with 9300 subjects, in which asundexiane is being tested for the prevention of ischemic stroke, is to continue.
Bayer loses glyphosate trial again
Replenishment from the pharmaceutical pipeline is essential for the Leverkusen-based company, as the patents for its bestsellers - the anticoagulant Xarelto and the ophthalmic drug Eylea - expire in the middle of the decade. For a long time, analysts considered the pipeline to be too weak to absorb the loss of sales after the patent expiry of the top drugs. But with Asundexian, the mood had changed. The premature termination of the study that has now been announced came as a complete surprise. According to analysts at Barclays, Bayer's pharmaceuticals business is therefore facing considerable challenges.
There was further bad news from Bayer's agricultural division at the weekend, as the company lost its fourth consecutive trial over the alleged carcinogenic effects of its weedkiller glyphosate. A jury in the US state of Missouri ordered the company to pay a total of 1.56 billion US dollars to four plaintiffs. Bayer announced that it would appeal. "Unlike prior cases, the courts in the recent cases improperly allowed plaintiffs to misrepresent the regulatory and scientific facts."
Bayer had already suffered three consecutive defeats in trials in October, after the Leverkusen-based company had previously won nine trials in a row. Bayer has always rejected the allegations against glyphosate. Authorities worldwide have classified the product as non-carcinogenic. However, the World Health Organization's cancer research agency IARC classified the active ingredient as "probably carcinogenic" in 2015. Most recently, settlements were still pending for 52,000 of the approximately 165,000 claims filed.
Bayer's pharmaceutical division, dealing with the discontinuation of the asundexiane study, faces significant challenges in the pharmaceutical pipeline, as its bestsellers' patents are set to expire in the mid-decade. Due to the decline in share prices, Bayer's stock market value has decreased by around 7.6 billion euros, with its shares trading at their lowest level in Frankfurt am Main in over a decade.
Source: www.ntv.de
