Bayer Achieves 2025 Targets, Projects Solid 2026 Amid Strategic Focus

The Bayer Group achieved its full-year targets for 2025 after having upgraded its currency-adjusted Group outlook for sales and earnings at the end of July. Group sales rose by 1.1 percent on a currency- and portfolio-adjusted basis to 45.575 billion euros in 2025, while EBITDA before special items decreased by 4.5 percent to 9.669 billion euros. Looking ahead, Bayer expects 2026 to be a year of solid sales and stable earnings on a currency-adjusted basis.

CEO Bill Anderson stated that the company delivered its guidance, landing comfortably within the improved corridor. He explained that "Crop Science progressed in the first year of its profitability improvement program. A rejuvenated picture of our Pharmaceuticals business emerged, with launch medicines establishing themselves as growth drivers and others advancing through our pipeline to market." The company's Consumer Health business suffered from market softness in the United States and China, but maintained the bottom line.

In the agricultural business, sales advanced by 1.1 percent to 21.622 billion euros, with growth mainly driven by Corn Seed & Traits. The Corn business registered a 13.2 percent rise in global sales thanks to strong product performance, an increase in planted area and the resolution of a licensing agreement with Corteva in North America. EBITDA before special items at Crop Science decreased by 3.2 percent to 4.188 billion euros.

Bayer's multi-pronged strategy to contain the U.S. litigations proceeds apace, with the company having last month announced a class settlement agreement to resolve current and future claims relating to Roundup. In addition, Bayer continues to implement Dynamic Shared Ownership and expects to realize the targeted two billion euros in savings through the new operating model.

Net income came in at minus 3.620 billion euros after net special charges of 6.185 billion euros that mainly resulted from litigation-related expenses. Core earnings per share decreased by 2.8 percent to 4.91 euros, mainly due to the decline in earnings in the Pharmaceuticals and Crop Science divisions. Free cash flow declined by 32.9 percent to 2.084 billion euros.

Net financial debt as of December 31, 2025, came in at 29.843 billion euros, representing a reduction of 8.5 percent against year-end 2024 that was mainly driven by cash inflows from operating activities as well as positive currency effects. At the upcoming Annual Stockholders' Meeting on April 24, 2026, the company will be proposing a dividend of 0.11 euros per share for 2025, in line with the dividend paid for 2024.

For the last three years, Bayer has been implementing a new strategy for its oncology development, a strategy that led to multiple approvals, as well as a number of promising new programmes added to its pipeline, in 2025. Now the company is tweaking that approach in the name of building a more diverse portfolio in terms of modality. The company is actively intervening to diversify its portfolio, seeking antibody drug conjugates, immune cell engager approaches, and bispecific approaches.

The company secured an accelerated approval in second-line non-small cell lung cancer with the HER2 mutation which came out of work at MIT. They're expecting first-line approval on that drug, sevabertinib, in 2026. Bayer is also anticipating a 2027 readout from the ARISTEP study of the company's successful drug Nubeqa (darolutamide) in prostate cancer, which became a blockbuster drug much faster than anticipated.

In the radioligand therapy space, Bayer has FDA-approved drug Xofigo (Radium a 223 dichloride), which is alpha-emission and offers advantages including higher linear energy transfer, shorter penetration, and no shielding needed compared to beta-emitters. The company continues to leverage its subsidiary Vividion's chemoproteomics platform in pursuit of previously undruggable targets.