Asundexian: Bayer share price falls to lowest value in more than 14 years

The share of chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer has crashed massively after stopping a study for the anticoagulant Asundexian. The value of the shares in the Leverkusen company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange temporarily fell by more than 21 percent to its lowest value in more than 14 years. The group’s market value has since shrunk by around 8.7 billion euros.

The background to the price collapse: the termination of a study on the new anticoagulant Asundexian – and the billion-dollar verdict by a court in the USA because of the weed killer Roundup, which contains glyphosate.

Bavarian had to announce on Sunday evening that a phase III study of the drug Asundexian would be stopped prematurely due to poor effectiveness. The decision is based on a recommendation from an independent monitoring committee for scientific studies. Previous study results had shown “inferior effectiveness,” it said.

Asundexian should be used in patients with atrial fibrillation and at risk of stroke. It was intended to be the successor to the anticoagulant Xarelto. Xarelto was a highly profitable business for Bayer. But patent protection will gradually expire in the coming years. This has already happened in Brazil. As the competition brings cheaper copycat products onto the market, Xarelto’s sales fell by 8.4 percent in the first nine months compared to the same period last year.

In addition to the setback at Asundexian, investors also sold their Bayer shares because the company was ordered on Friday by a federal court in Jefferson City (Missouri) to pay a total of more than 1.5 billion US dollars to three former users of the weed killer Roundup, which contains glyphosate had been. The plaintiffs blamed the product for their cancer. In the United States, juries often award large sums to plaintiffs, which in many cases are later significantly reduced by judges. Bayer announced that it would appeal.