PARAGRAPH WRITING : Bayer's History

The general partnership "Friedr. Bayer et comp." was founded on August 1, 1863 in Barmen - now a district of the city of Wuppertal - by dye salesman Friedrich Bayer (1825-1880) and master dyer Johann Friedrich Weskott (1821-1876). The object of the company was the manufacture and sale of synthetic dyestuffs.
The production of these dyes from coal-tar derivatives had only been invented a few years previously, opening up a new field of business for the still-young chemical industry. Its market was the textile industry, which at the time was growing rapidly in the wake of industrialization. The natural dyes that had been used until then were scarce and expensive. New inventions, such as the synthesis of the red dye alizarin, and the strong demand for tar dyes led to a boom in new foundings. Many dye factories were built at this time, but only innovative companies with their own research facilities and the ability to exploit opportunities on the international market managed to survive over the long term. Bayer was one of these companies. 

Between 1881 and 1913, Bayer developed into a chemical company with international operations. Although dyestuffs remained the company's largest division, new fields of business were joining the fold. Of primary importance for Bayer's continuing development was the establishment of a major research capability by Carl Duisberg (1861-1935). A scientific laboratory was built in Wuppertal-Elberfeld - which was also the company's headquarters from 1878 until 1912 - that set new standards in industrial research. Bayer's research efforts gave rise to numerous intermediates, dyes and pharmaceuticals, including the "drug of the century," Aspirin, which was developed by Felix Hoffmann and launched onto the market in 1899. The financial foundation for expansion was laid in 1881, when Bayer was transformed into a joint stock company called "Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co." The company's impressive growth in its early years is evident from the size of the workforce, which grew from three in 1863 to more than 300 in 1881.

The creation of a worldwide sales organization was a decisive factor in the company's continuing development. Bayer had already shipped dyestuffs to many countries in its early years. By 1913, over 80 percent of revenues came from exports. Bayer today is represented in nearly all countries of the world. In 1865 the company acquired an interest in its first coal-tar dyes factory in Albany, New York. Over the following decades, additional foreign affiliated companies were established in order to secure and expand Bayer's position in important markets. Shortly before World War I, the company maintained subsidiaries in Russia, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States. Of the approximately 10,000 people employed by Bayer in 1913, nearly 1,000 worked outside of Germany.

Leverkusen became the company's headquarters in 1912. As time went on, the Elberfeld site proved to be too small for continuing expansion. For this reason, Bayer first purchased the alizarin red factory of Dr. Carl Leverkus & Sons north of Cologne in 1891 before acquiring additional land along the Rhine River. Starting in 1895, Bayer systematically expanded this site according to plans drawn up by Carl Duisberg, who served as the company's Management Board Chairman from 1912 to 1925.

Bayer's dazzling development was interrupted by the First World War. The company was largely cut off from its major export markets, and sales of dyes and pharmaceuticals dropped accordingly. Bayer was increasingly integrated into the war economy and began to produce war materials, including explosives and chemical weapons. In 1917, during the war, Bayer launched its third production site in Dormagen. The effects of the war were devastating. The company lost most of its foreign assets and the export markets - upon which the company's further development depended - remained largely inaccessible.

In the early 1930s became a time of inventions, polyacrylonitrile-butadiene-rubber (Perbunan) was developed here, and Otto Bayer (1902-1982) invented polyurethanes in 1937. The Wupperal-Elberfeld facility continued its successful research into drugs to control malaria. Working together with Fritz Mietzsch (1896-1958) and Joseph Klarer (1898-1953), Gerhard Domagk (1895-1964) discovered the therapeutic effect of the sulfonamides - a key breakthrough in the chemotherapy of infectious diseases for which Domagk received the Nobel Prize in 1939.

When the Second World War finally broke out in 1939, the locations of the Lower Rhine consortium were among the sites of German industry that were considered "vital to the war." Production requirements grew steadily, yet more and more employees were drafted into military service. For this reason, foreign and forced laborers from the occupied countries of Europe were brought to work in Leverkusen, Dormagen, Elberfeld and Uerdingen - and throughout German industry as a whole - to maintain output levels. At times during the war, these laborers accounted for up to one third of the workforce. Concentration camp prisoners were not employed in the Lower Rhine sites.

About 1990, The ‘90s saw another major structural transformation, with Bayer, like other companies, facing the challenge of globalization. In the wake of the radical political changes that took place in Germany and eastern Europe after 1989, the company increased its focus on these promising markets. As early as 1992, Bayer broke ground on a new site in Bitterfeld in eastern Germany, where production of Aspirin began in 1994.

To better equip itself for the challenges of the future, Bayer set up a third pharmaceutical research center, this time in Japan, in addition to the locations in Europe (Wuppertal) and North America (West Haven, Connecticut). In 1995 the research center of Japanese pharmaceutical subsidiary Bayer Yakuhin Ltd. was dedicated at Kansai Science City near Kyoto. This marked the basic completion of Bayer's Europe/North America/Japan "pharmaceutical research triad." In the years that followed, these operations were supplemented by alliances with numerous innovative biotechnology companies.