German Contributions to your Health

by Paul A. Schons

Originally published by the Germanic-American Institute in October, 2001

If you use Bayer Aspirin, Aleve, Alka-Selzer, Midol or Vanquish or if you or your children use One-A-Day Vitamins, Bugs Bunny Vitamins, or Flintstone Vitamins or even should you use Phillips Milk of Magnesia, it is a German Company, Bayer AG of Leverkusen, Germany, which is easing your pain, contributing to your health and solving your problems.

It all started in 1863 when Friedrich Bayer (1825-1880) founded a modest little company in Barmen, Germany to produce dyes. The firm grew rapidly and exported to textile manufacturers throughout the world. With the income from dyes, a pharmaceutical department was founded in 1888. A great breakthrough in medicine was made in 1887 when a Bayer chemist, Dr. Felix Hoffmann, who had been working with salicin, was able to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid in a chemically pure and stable form. It was trademarked with the name, Aspirin, and the world’s first “wonder drug” was born. The name comes from “a” for acetylsalicylic acid, “spir” for the spirea plant which produces salicin and “in” which was simply a generic suffix for medications. In 1912 the company moved its headquarters to Leverkusen where the world headquarters is located today. At the turn of the century Bayer’s aspirin was the most used drug in the world. The profits were, of course, immense.

A large portion of the profits began to come from the United States after the company secured an American patent on the drug in 1900. 1900 was also the year in which Bayer scientists discovered how to produce the drug in tablets rather than in powder form. With the convenient tablets, profits increased even faster.

The U.S. market was a gold mine, which looked as if it could have no end. The American gold mine, however, came to an abrupt end for Bayer, Germany only a few years later. In 1917 the United States entered World War I. At that time an agency of the government, the “Alien Property Custodian” seized all property in the United States owned by enemy aliens. That seizure included all holdings of Bayer Company of New York, the U.S. division of the company. The American holdings were then purchased at auction by the Sterling Remedy Company of Illinois for $5,310,000. That purchase included all assets, the American patent for aspirin, and the use of the name Bayer in the American market as well as the rights to the company logo, the white cross.

Americans continued to buy Bayer Aspirin in the same packaging, but it was no longer a product of the German company. That remained true for the next 75 years. Bayer of Leverkusen returned to the global market but was prohibited from doing business in the United States and Canada under its own name.

The years after World War I had been unsettled for the parent company in any case. During the period between the two world wars Bayer was folded into the amalgamation of German chemical companies known as IG Farben. On the part of Bayer, it was brought into the super company under the leadership of Carl Duisberg (who then became the head of IG Farben). At the defeat of Germany in World War II, the Allies broke the company up again and Bayer returned to its status as an independent company with the name of Farbenfabriken Bayer AG. It was not until 1972 that the company again changed its name to the current Bayer AG. Bayer participated in the German Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) of that period and became once again one of the world’s giants.

The company was still faced with the problem in the world’s largest national market, the U.S.A., though, of not being permitted to use its own name nor its logo due to the World War I loss. It struggled to gain market share in the U.S. market under the assumed name, Miles, Inc. In the meantime aspirin made even greater strides in its overall effectiveness. It was determined that aspirin not only cured pain but was also effective in preventing heart attacks and strokes. Indeed Bayer was involved in a variety of other products including a variety of advanced pharmaceuticals, rubber, plastics, diagnostic systems, and industrial chemicals. The company had developed polyurethane, used in a wide variety of modern products. But the Bayer aspirin which had launched the company to greatness still belonged to someone else within the American market.

Finally in 1994 the opportunity the company had been watching for over so many years presented itself. The British company, Smith Kline Beecham, had bought the international over-the-counter medication line (including Bayer Aspirin) from the American company, Sterling Winthrop. Within two weeks Bayer had struck a deal to buy the North American operations from the new owners for 1 billion dollars cash. After 75 years Bayer had the rights to its own name again in the U.S.A. and Canada and was again selling Bayer Aspirin in this huge and growing market. This was just in time to celebrate fully the 100th anniversary of the invention of aspirin. There was another celebration in the year 2000 as the 10 billionth Bayer Aspirin tablet was produced at the new plant in Bitterfeld (in former East Germany).

Bayer’s over-the-counter medications in the United States are now coordinated by the Bayer Consumer Care Division in Morris Township, New Jersey. The head of North American operations is Timothy G. Hayes. The Chairman of the Board of the parent company, Bayer AG, in Leverkusen is Dr. Manfred Schneider.