Bayer CEO Warns that Company May Stop Making Roundup

The Wall Street Journal’s Patrick Thomas reported that “Roundup’s time may be up. Pharmaceutical and agriculture conglomerate Bayer said it could stop producing the world’s most popular weedkiller, unless it gets court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer.”

“Roundup has generated tens of billions of dollars in sales over time for Bayer and Monsanto, the biotech seed giant and developer of Roundup that Bayer acquired in 2018,” Thomas reported. “Bayer currently produces about 40% of the world’s glyphosate, which farmers spray across fields to tame crop-threatening weeds.”

“But over the past decade, the herbicide has also brought Bayer a wave of litigation, pressuring its share price and costing about $10 billion in payouts to plaintiffs,” Thomas reported. “In early March, Bayer told farmers, suppliers and retailers that it may stop selling Roundup, which would leave U.S. farmers reliant on imported glyphosate from China.”

“‘We’re pretty much reaching the end of the road,’ Bayer Chief Executive Bill Anderson said in an interview,” according to Thomas’ reporting. “‘We’re talking months, not years.’”

“Since taking over as Bayer’s CEO in 2023, Anderson has said one of his goals is to get the glyphosate litigation under control by 2026. He said that in some years, Roundup-related litigation expenses eclipse Bayer’s agriculture research-and-development budget,” Thomas reported. “‘We barely break even on glyphosate production and distribution, and if you then factor in litigation, you’re talking $2 billion to $3 billion in losses a year,’ Anderson said. Bayer said it brought in $2.8 billion from glyphosate sales last year.”