Shares of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer are at a 15-year low
German pharmaceutical giant Bayer crashed in the stock market after being sentenced to 1.56 billion dollars in compensation for the herbicide Roundup and announcing that the anticoagulant drug did not show its effectiveness in the final stages.
Shares of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer fell to lows not seen in a decade after it said a late-stage trial for a blood-thinning drug for heart disease did not show its effectiveness.
The German company said in a statement that the anticoagulant drug showed lower effectiveness compared to another drug in the same study.
Bayer weekend on weedkiller Roundup USAHe also lost an important case in .
Bayers shares fell 18 percent to 34 percent, according to the Financial Times. EuroIt fell to the lowest levels not seen since 2008.
On the other hand, the market value of the company is approximately 7.6 billion Euros (8.3 billion dollar) suffered its biggest decline ever.
‘HE SHOULD HAVE FOUND A PARTNER TO SHARE THE RISKS’
The German company said on Sunday that it had terminated the late-stage testing of its blood-thinning drug, which was expected to break sales records, due to lack of effectiveness.
“Asundexian was the pearl of Bayer’s pharmaceutical pipeline,” said Markus Manns, portfolio manager at Union Investment and one of the shareholders. “Bayer should have found a partner with whom it would share development costs and risks,” he said.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST COMPENSATIONS
The announcement came two days after Bayer’s Monsanto unit was ordered to pay more than $1.5 billion to four former Roundup users who claimed the weed killer Roundup caused diseases including cancer.
The verdict in the US state of Missouri, worth more than $1.5 billion, was one of the largest compensation verdicts given against a company in the USA this year.
Bayer said it would appeal the decisions and insists the product is safe. Two years ago, the company allocated $16 billion to settle more than 100,000 lawsuits over the health effects of Roundup.
FALLING WITH SECOND WAVE OF CASES
The company is now facing a second wave of lawsuits.
Bayer is currently pursuing another Roundup trial before a state court jury in Philadelphia involving a man who blamed the herbicide for his cancer. The jury is still hearing evidence and closing arguments are not expected until later this month or early December, according to attorneys involved in the case.
Another trial is scheduled to begin in California in December, while at least three more trials are scheduled to begin in Philadelphia in the coming months.
