Bayer supports Japan earthquake relief with donations

Bayer has announced that it will be making significant contributions to aid relief efforts in earthquake-stricken Japan, with the cooperation of its employees.

The group has announced that donations of more than one million euros (868.75 million pounds) are to be made following the seismic activity and subsequent tsunami on March 11th 2011.

Of this total, 880,000 euros will be offered to the Japanese Red Cross to help assist affected people and communities, while the nation's health authorities will be offered 120,000 euros worth of Bayer HealthCare products.

The firm also announced that it will be conducting a matching gift scheme for employee donations to the Bayer Cares Foundation.

This will see Bayer match pledges of up to 250,000 euros made to the foundation by its staff members, which will be used for a reconstruction project in one of the badly affected regions.

Earlier this month, the group's Bayer HealthCare unit announced that it will be supporting a new research project that will see drug manufacturers ally with academia to investigate colon cancer therapies.