Bayer held its first ever Breakthrough Innovation Discussion board, specializing in longer-term alternatives for well being and agriculture leveraging rising applied sciences.
“The confluence of biology, chemistry, and knowledge sciences offers the chance to unravel a few of the world’s biggest challenges. However this chance solely exists for corporations and scientists who dare to ask, ‘what if.’”
These have been the phrases of Werner Baumann, chairman of the Board of Administration of Bayer AG, when he opened the corporate’s inaugural Breakthrough Innovation Discussion board on April 1. Guided by a powerful perception within the countless potentialities of human creativity, the discussion board targeted on how leveraging rising applied sciences can present longer-term alternatives for well being and agriculture.
Bayer, a world enterprise with core competencies within the life science fields of healthcare and diet, just lately up to date its Pharma and Crop Science Divisions’ short- and mid-term pipeline to drive long-term improvements within the life sciences. Together with the occasion, Bayer introduced that it’s accelerating funding in its Leaps by Bayer impression funding unit, pledging with greater than €1.3 billion in funding till the top of 2024.
“With Bayer stepping up its funding in Leaps over the approaching years, we can proceed on our profitable path and supply funding for the brightest minds engaged on options that actually make a distinction for folks and the planet,” stated Jürgen Eckhardt, Head of Leaps by Bayer.
Leaps by Bayer follows a novel strategy geared toward tackling ten of humanity’s greatest challenges, together with curing most cancers and decreasing the environmental impression of agriculture. The unit has launched into many joint ventures and led a number of profitable funding rounds.
Over the previous three years, Bayer has invested greater than €2.5 billion to assemble a Cell & Gene Remedy Platform. The corporate additionally drives innovation within the space by way of strategic partnerships which have resulted in eight tasks in varied levels of medical improvement and main applications in Parkinson’s illness, Pompe illness, and congestive coronary heart failure.
One of many important acquisitions made to speed up gene remedy analysis is that of AskBio, a number one clinical-stage adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene remedy firm devoted to bettering the lives of sufferers with uncommon issues and different ailments.
“Whereas we’re lastly turning into profitable in bringing genetic medicines to satisfy unmet wants. Such medicines have the potential to deal with a lot bigger populations of complicated ailments, corresponding to Parkinson’s, congested coronary heart failure, and Alzheimer’s,” stated Dr. Jude Samulski, president, chief scientific officer, and co-founder of AskBio on the discussion board.
In agriculture, Bayer is using the ability of rising applied sciences to create a sustainable and resilient meals system and assist farmers produce extra with fewer assets and decreased emissions. Bayer’s funding in crop science R&D is unparalleled within the trade at €2 billion yearly, and the corporate boasts a strong innovation pipeline spanning seeds and trait applied sciences, crop safety, and digital options valued at as much as €30 billion peak gross sales potential over the subsequent twenty years.
“The environmental well being and dietary challenges we face are large,” stated Rodrigo Santos, President of Bayer’s Crop Science division, who burdened the significance of rapid motion to fight meals insecurity and local weather change. Santos added that Bayer is “uniquely positioned to steer a revolution in agriculture. And maybe extra importantly, we additionally acknowledge that we’ve got a duty to take action.”
A method Bayer is main the decarbonization of agriculture is thru its digital farming platform, the Bayer Carbon Initiative, which incentivizes farmers to make use of climate-smart practices and makes use of next-generation expertise to quantify and monitor the impression of those practices.
Bayer has additionally launched the world’s first biotech protection towards corn rootworm based mostly on RNAi expertise. Its short-stature corn might be launched as a part of Bayer’s newly launched Sensible Corn System in 2023 as a extra weather-resistant plant to the market. Different initiatives embrace collaborations and acquisitions, corresponding to that of Oerth Bio, the world’s solely firm designing focused protein modulators particularly for plant well being functions.
Bob Reiter, head of analysis and improvement at Bayer’s Crop Science division, famous on the discussion board that a majority of these applied sciences are “actually a win-win for farmers and sustainability, and we’re excited concerning the potential that this expertise holds for a complete host of functions sooner or later.”
