Bayer HealthCare achieves strong growth in 2014

Bayer HealthCare achieved a strong performance in 2014, helping the Bayer group as a whole to achieve record sales and earnings for the year.

The company's sales total came to 42.24 billion euros (30.73 billion pounds), up by 5.2 percent year on year, with the HealthCare division contributing 19.98 billion euros to this sum.

Business in the HealthCare subgroup expanded by 5.6 percent compared to 2013, thanks primarily to double-digit growth for the pharmaceuticals division, driven by strong sales of the recently-launched brands Xarelto, Eylea, Stivarga, Xofigo and Adempas.

Management board chairman Dr Marijn Dekkers said: "These products have played a crucial role in making us one of the fastest-growing large companies in the pharmaceutical industry."

Its consumer health business also showed good momentum, which will give Bayer confidence to execute on its strategy of becoming an entirely life science-focused organisation.

This comes after Bayer HealthCare appointed Werner Baumann as its new chairman last month, following the departure of Olivier Brandicourt to Sanofi.