Michael Preuss: Good morning, and welcome to our media update for the third quarter 2026. Many thanks for joining. For today's presentation, Bill will provide an update on our year-to-date business performance and strategic priorities, and then Judith will walk you through the key drivers of our results and the outlook. And after that, we'll have time for your questions. Now before starting, I would like to briefly draw your attention to the cautionary language included in our safe harbor statement. And with that, over to you, Bill.
William Anderson: Thanks, Michael. Hi, everyone. We posted our results for the third quarter earlier today. And 9 months into the year, we're on track to deliver our commitments with a strong operational performance, and we're even upgrading our outlook in several areas. So sales grew 3% organically or currency and portfolio adjusted, which we'll refer to throughout today's call. Core EPS is at EUR 3.97, in line with our guidance despite some effects on the corporate lines. As expected, free cash flow is at negative EUR 3 billion due to known litigation-related payments. On the whole, our business has demonstrated operational resilience and underlying potential. Crop Science and Consumer Health are performing in line with targets while navigating market pressures. And our Pharma business, led by Nubeqa and Kerendia demonstrates its growth momentum. Let's take a closer look. In Crop Science, the third quarter is always our smallest. Year-to-date, the business is growing about 3.5% with the EBITDA margin coming in at 24.6%. Our Seeds and Traits business is growing double digit, supported by innovation lift and market share gains, most notably on corn globally and soy in the U.S. Our core Crop Protection business is down on the year due to expected portfolio exits, regulatory impacts and increased generic pressure. This was further compounded by a historic drought in Europe and a strong El Nino. Looking forward, LatAm is off to a strong start to the season, and we feel well positioned to deliver our '26 outlook. Pharma continues its momentum. Year-to-date, the business is growing 2% with an EBITDA margin of 26.8%. Nubeqa is up 60% year-to-date and Kerendia is growing 76% in the same time frame. And we continue to strengthen product profiles and growth prospects of both of these brands. Our newer launches are also progressing well. In Q3, [indiscernible] entered our top 15 pharma products in terms of sales for the first time. Xarelto and EYLEA continue to decline in line with our expectations, but we've reached a turning point in pharma's growth trajectory, and we're beginning to see the other side. For the full year, we now expect sales growth towards the upper end of our guidance range. And on the back of our strong performance year-to-date, we're also upgrading our margin outlook to 25% to 27%. To support the future growth trajectory of our Pharma business, we announced our plans to build a state-of-the-art production facility in New Albany, Ohio in Q3. The facility will support our growing portfolio in oncology, cardiovascular and renal care, and it will complement our global site network in pharma, which we continue to invest in as appropriate. Finally, Consumer Health. We're growing 2% so far this year, and our EBITDA margin is at 22.9%. Our Dermatology and Digestive Health businesses continue to grow, led by contributions from Bepanthen across all regions and MiraLAX in the U.S. Allergy and cold is our only category that's down due to a weaker season. We continue to see challenging market dynamics, particularly in North America, but we remain focused on achieving our 2026 commitments and delivering for the consumers that are counting on us. Overall, we remain confident in our 2026 targets for the group. We expect our Pharma business to continue its momentum and come in better than previously projected. And we're upgrading our outlook for adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and net financial debt. Operationally, Bayer continues to make good progress, and we'll stay focused on strengthening our performance 90 days at a time. Now let's move on to our strategic priorities. First, the pharma pipeline. I mentioned Nubeqa's growth momentum. At the recent ESMO Congress, we presented interim results that bolster this medicine's potential. This analysis showed an impressive 58% reduction in the risk of metastases or death in prostate cancer patients with a very high risk of recurrence. We're really pleased with this data. Of course, we're cognizant of market dynamics like competitor genericization and pricing pressures, but we feel that these results reinforce Nubeqa's overall potential. The biggest news out of our pipeline came the beginning of last week when we received the first approval for asundexian in secondary stroke prevention in China under the brand name Sunharbo. Asundexian is now the first approved Factor XIa inhibitor worldwide, and we're focused on obtaining additional approvals. Now here, I want to congratulate the Bayer team that got asundexian to this point. Our scientists in Wuppertal invented this molecule and have worked on it for more than a decade. Even after a setback in November of 2023, they haven't lost sight of what asundexian could mean for stroke survivors. They've embraced our operating model and artificial intelligence, which allowed them to substantially compress the time line, getting this medicine to patients a year early. That's an incredible impact. Now regarding Crop Science profitability, we continue to address pressures on crop protection through actions under our 5-year framework. In Q3, we further consolidated crop protection, production activities, and we reduced costs. We'll continue to monitor the market closely and take actions as necessary. We're also advancing differentiated innovation in seeds and traits as well as crop protection. Last month, we introduced the new insecticide Plenexos to the Mexican market, while the Vyconic soybean stack advanced into the final stage of EU import approval, bringing us one step closer to launching this key blockbuster. On the Roundup litigation, we remain focused on our significant containment, and we're on track. In September, the class settlement between plaintiffs' Class Counsel and Monsanto reached the final approval hearing. The company remains confident in the proposed class settlement. We appreciate that it's getting a thorough review, and we await the judge's ruling. Why is this important? As we've said before, the path to resolving mass litigation in the U.S. almost always involves a settlement, and we reached a deal with plaintiffs' class counsel. So together with the Supreme Court's June ruling, the class settlement offers the company the best path to significant containment. That's what we committed to. That's what we aim to deliver. Now as we move toward that goal, there will still be a much smaller number of individual cases pending against the company. One case was just decided in our favor. We take that as a strong sign that our containment work is advancing. Last week's Aretino case was important because it was the first case that went to trial after the Supreme Court's 7 to 2 decision, which struck down the failure to warn legal theory. In this case, plaintiffs had to present a legal theory based on design defect and negligence claims and the fact that all 12 jurists sided with the company should be informative for those seeking to pursue claims in the court system. We'll continue to handle cases in the best interest of the company, and we're awaiting an important decision on the settlement. I also want to mention PCBs, which differ from the glyphosate cases in terms of the multifaceted nature of the claims. Our legal strategy accounts for this, and we'll continue to defend these matters vigorously or pursue settlements. We expect legal proceedings in the coming quarters, and we'll act in the company's best interest. Now looking ahead, we're focused on closing 2026 strong and achieving our targets. The ag season is underway in Latin America. Pharma has strong momentum with existing launch assets and potential new medicines reaching the market. And Consumer Health is going to embrace our operating model to navigate the softer market and deliver the year. And we see an exciting future for Bayer, a future in which the company is viewed differently than in the past. We're focused on improving revenues, increasing productivity and cash generation through our operating model and the rollout of AI. We want to sharpen our capital allocation with resources focused on the biggest mission impact while continuing to deleverage. And we'll continue to update you on our progress, and we have the next opportunity with our full year results in February next year. So now over to you, Judith.
Judith Hartmann: Thank you, Bill, and hello to all of you. After the first 9 months of the year, we see very good momentum and are happy to be able to upgrade our full year group outlook for adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and net financial debt. Year-to-date, we delivered organic sales growth of 3% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 7% compared to last year. In Q3, Pharmaceuticals was the key driver of group performance, supporting organic sales growth of 2% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 7%. Foreign exchange effects were a year-on-year tailwind on reported results in Q3, contributing approximately EUR 250 million to net sales. This was primarily driven by the weaker euro against the U.S. dollar, Brazilian real and Chinese renminbi. On a year-to-date basis, however, currency effects continue to weigh on results, reducing sales by around EUR 700 million and adjusted EBITDA by approximately EUR 360 million. Year-to-date, core earnings per share of EUR 3.97 benefited from stronger operational contributions, particularly from Crop Science and Pharmaceuticals, offset by both the weaker core financial results and higher core taxes. In Q3, strong adjusted EBITDA in Pharma contributed positively to core EPS. However, we saw softer performance in the other divisions. We also saw pressure from noncash effects in the financial result, mainly driven by interest-related fair value changes in some of our employee benefit and pension instruments. Turning to free cash flow. We reported negative EUR 3 billion for the first 9 months of the year, largely driven by EUR 3.7 billion of litigation-related payments. This was slightly better than expected. Excluding these payments, underlying operational cash flow is ahead versus prior year, driven by improved trade working capital as well as licensing resolution income and the Avelox divestment. In Q3, free cash flow was negative EUR 300 million, including the second payment into the class settlement fund. Finally, net debt increased to EUR 31.1 billion, reflecting a notable improvement versus both Q3 '25 and Q2 '26. This was primarily driven by the successful closing of the Apollo equity investment, which generated proceeds of EUR 3 billion. We had announced this transaction in the second quarter. Let's move on to the group outlook. With the strong Pharma performance, we now expect adjusted EBITDA for the group between EUR 9.8 billion and EUR 10.3 billion at constant currencies, up from our initial guidance range of EUR 9.6 billion to EUR 10.1 billion. We reiterate our current guidance range for core EPS. Core financial results and core taxes are expected to remain within the modeling ranges, including the noncash effects we saw in Q3. On free cash flow, we continue to work on all cash flow levers, including profits, working capital and CapEx. We are raising our full year outlook by EUR 1 billion to minus EUR 1.5 billion to minus EUR 0.5 billion. The previous forecast had been between minus EUR 2.5 billion and minus EUR 1.5 billion. The improved free cash flow performance is anticipated to result in lower net financial debt at year-end, which we now expect to be in the range of EUR 28 billion to EUR 29 billion at constant currencies. This compares to the previous range of EUR 29 billion to EUR 30 billion. Finally, on currencies, we have updated the foreign exchange estimate based on September month end spot rates, which remained rather stable compared to our last estimate. I will close with the divisional outlook. In Crop Science, our performance through the first 9 months keeps us on track to deliver within full year guidance ranges. Strong Seeds and Traits performance is expected to offset additional core crop protection headwinds. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect continued momentum in Latin America. The year-on-year comparison for Crop Science will be impacted by prior year licensing income. For our Pharma business, Q3 marked the starting point for a sustainable return to growth. Based on the current performance, we expect to finish '26 at the upper end of our organic sales growth outlook. While we remain committed to investing in our launches and advancing our pipeline in Q4, top line growth is expected to further support full year margin expansion. We, therefore, upgrade our full year outlook for the adjusted EBITDA margin to between 25% and 27%, up from 24% to 26% previously. For Consumer Health, the performance in the first 9 months supports our full year guidance. Based on the development year-to-date and our current expectations for the fourth quarter, we expect full year growth in the lower half of the guidance range. Market conditions remain mixed, especially in the United States. Competitive dynamics in Nutritionals and the development of the cough/cold season remain important factors for the fourth quarter. Our focus remains clear: invest behind our strongest brands and innovation while allocating resources towards our most attractive growth opportunities. Looking ahead, we will, of course, provide our '27 outlook with our full year 2026 results, but I want to highlight some trends we are seeing. Firstly, Crop Science will face a tougher year-on-year comparison in the absence of licensing resolution income. We continue to monitor a mixed agricultural environment with pressured farmer economics, generic competition and weather uncertainty, but we believe that underlying demand remains resilient. We will respond with appropriate measures as we execute our 5-year framework. Secondly, the U.S. tariffs on patent and pharmaceuticals have been considered in our guidance for this year. On drug pricing, we continue to evaluate what U.S. most favored nation policies may mean for our pricing and launch strategies. I want to end my remarks by reiterating that we remain firmly focused on our financial priorities, strengthening our balance sheet, improving productivity and cash generation and building financial flexibility to invest in next-generation growth. With that, over to you, Michael, for the Q&A.
Michael Preuss: Thank you very much, Judith. Thank you very much, Bill. Let's now start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Now let's get started. We have a first question coming from Sonja Wind from Bloomberg, followed then by Kevin Grogan from Scrip.
Sonja Wind: Can you hear me?
Michael Preuss: Yes, we can hear you. I think we need a little bit more, let's say, volume here in the room, but we can hear you.
Sonja Wind: My first question would be on the next big decision settlement proposal. Plaintiffs can still opt in as of now, as I understand it. So I would be curious to hear if you are satisfied with the proportion of opt-ins and opt-outs as of today. You also mentioned the PCBs. Can you give us some context on the financial exposure that is remaining there? Do you believe that the current provisions are sufficient to cover the cases that are still outstanding? And then lastly, I would have a question on the drug pricing. So you're awaiting asundexian approval in the U.S. In Europe, it's under review. I'm curious what alternative options launching strategies you're looking at? Because not launching is one option, but maybe are you looking at private market launches as well?
William Anderson: Sonja, good to hear from you. Yes, first, regarding the question about, I guess, what we could call opt-ins. So this would be people who opted out before the -- there was an opt-out deadline that was in early June. And there were actually quite a few people who originally opted out who are now actually trying to get back in because since that early June opt-out deadline, there's been a couple of big events, including the SCOTUS approval, the fairness hearing, which we thought went well, and then also this most recent loss on these alternative legal theories. So there's actually a lot of sort of opt-outs and plaintiffs who were representing opt-outs who are now trying to get in. So I think it's possible that there will be quite a few more of those coming back in even after the approval would come. We're assuming that there will be an approval from the court just because we believe that this is a good deal. It's supported by the overwhelming majority of the plaintiffs' attorneys as well as the company. But -- so there'll be a ruling, but there could well be more basically returning opt-outs coming back in after that because it's an administrative process. There's papers that have to be signed and notarized and things. So we would expect that based on cases also like the Aretino case that we just mentioned, where the jury sided 12-0 with the company that a lot of people who were thinking about challenging before the Supreme Court ruling, before this latest trial, a lot of them trying to get back in. We're getting those calls now, and we think that will continue. So I just say that because I guess you should expect that when there's a ruling on the -- a final ruling on the settlement, there will be a certain number of opt-outs at that point, but that number should continue to go down as more of those come in and get through the administrative process. Secondly, on you asked about PCBs. PCBs has been -- there's been PCB litigation since the 1980s. It flared in the '80s, it flared in the '90s. There were some in the 2000s. We had a number of these cases in Washington State that we've resolved earlier this year. And so we sort of expect with PCBs that there will be cases and then there will be kind of lulls and then there will be cases. And this is something we have to deal with in an ongoing fashion. We have some reserves for this, but obviously, we only reserve for things when we believe there's a high likelihood of something occurring. And on PCBs, that would be very difficult to judge. So I think this is -- we view this as something that's going to be ongoing in the background, and we'll deal with that. And we have plans on how to deal with that with a combination of our defense and certain strategic settlements. So that will continue. And then you asked about drug pricing for asundexian. Look, the main goal, Sonja, would be that we have a reasonable price for asundexian approved in all the major markets. This is a medicine that is a game changer in the treatment of stroke. Something like this doesn't come along often, and patients in every country should have access. And so that's got to be our goal. And the key is we're working with countries like the German government to say, "Hey, this needs to be a reasonable price. I mean, by the way, I was just looking at this data the other day. Since AMNOG was created in Germany, which is the price control authority in Germany, prescription drug prices have gone down 10%. That's over 15 years. They've gone down 10%. In the same time, the general inflation has driven the price of everything up by 44%. So the cost of R&D, the cost of production and the cost of everything else have gone up 44%, while pharmaceutical prices have gone down 10%. That's not reasonable. And so this is something we're working with and other pharmaceutical companies are working with actively in Europe because Europe should not become a pharmaceutical desert, but that's what these kind of price containment policies could lead to. And so we're optimistic with asundexian, we can get to a good outcome, but it remains a concern.
Michael Preuss: The next question comes from Kevin Grogan from Scrip followed then by Patrick Thomas from the Wall Street Journal.
Kevin Grogan: I've got a couple of pharma questions, please. First of all, Bill, I remember in the past, you were saying that in general, you preferred earlier-stage assets to bring in because you got more value out and to do more with them. But given that Beyonttra is now starting to bloom and very impressive performance in the third quarter, have you maybe looking to revisit that plan and maybe getting other late-stage assets in to sort of further boost the portfolio there? And also a quick one on Lynkuet launch, how is that going? Because obviously, there's a liver monitoring aspect. This is very much a sort of a wait-and-see kind of thing? Is it very difficult to launch because obviously, your friends at Astellas had similar problems actually in terms of the speed of launch.
William Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Kevin. It sounds like you're in fine form today, which is good because I guess you're an hour earlier than us maybe. So good for you. Good for you. Yes. So on your question about early-stage deals, our preference there. Of course, we would love to do late-stage deals that are really great value, and we can get big blockbusters when they're all ready to launch. And so it's not that we don't like late-stage deals. It's just the general observation that late-stage deals tend to come at a very high price tag. And in fact, -- in my 30 years in the industry, I've been tracking this. And my estimate would be that between 80% and 90% of late-stage deals end up being negative NPV. That's not -- like I don't go to the casino either because the house is rigged against you. And so doing late-stage deals as a matter of course is not a good way to run a pharma business unless you like to pay more than things are worth. Of course, if we find a great medicine that is available in late stage at reasonable terms, then of course, we'd like to do that deal. And so Beyonttra is a great example of that. We think this is going to be a really important medicine, and we think it was an attractive deal. Usually, when you can get an attractive deal on a late-stage medicine, it's either 1 of 2 things is true. Either it's because you know something about that indication, that disease or that market that other people don't know. And I've been a part of deals like that in the past, for example, in multiple sclerosis at former companies where we knew something about the therapy area of the disease, and we were able to make a really good deal based on that unique insight or you have some asset that the partner needs. And for example, in the case of Beyonttra, we have production capacity and not only capacity, but we have, I would say, world-class ability to go from somebody else's process to putting the process in our facility and getting it approved by regulators. And so I think that combination was actually quite helpful for us in getting the Beyonttra deal. And we're -- yes, in fact, we're doing that with a number of products, also including Nubeqa. We're beginning to produce it in-house because of that capability. We'll keep an eye out for good late-stage deals, but we're not relying on that for our future pipeline. And instead, we are focused on doing a lot of deals early and getting a lot of shots on goal. We have a world-class drug development organization that can move things very rapidly, and we have a very low cost structure. And so I would put our speed and cost structure of drug development up against any company in the world. And we want to capitalize on that. And by the way, asundexian, great case in point because there was a very competitive Phase II race with Factor XIa inhibitors, but we're in the market and our competition doesn't have Phase III results yet. So I think we've demonstrated we can move fast. And so our strategy really is to get as many molecules as possible that are high-quality molecules, whether they're from in-house labs like asundexian came from Wuppertal in right down the street in Germany from our own chemists. You look at things that are coming out of Vividion in San Diego or BlueRock or AskBio. So these are sort of in-house innovation centers or external. But we want to get as many quality molecules in early stage as possible and then go through development in really fast timing. That's our strategy. On Lynkuet, yes, I mean, we know this is a -- I would say it's not a simple marketplace because menopause is sort of, I think, often, it's people satisfy with it. Women just decide, hey, I'm just going to get on with life despite these symptoms. And so it's sort of undertreated. The options are underrecognized. There's a relatively low awareness. So we think it's going to take a little while to get the awareness up, get physicians used to using these medicines. We like our label. You mentioned liver testing. I think we think we have a good label. We're not hearing a lot of pushback on that. I think it's more a question of inertia and kind of overcoming that market inertia.
Michael Preuss: Okay. Talking about being very up early for the call. Next in line is Patrick Thomas from the Wall Street Journal and then followed by Antje Honing from Rheinische Post. Patrick, over to you.
Patrick Thomas: Can you guys hear me okay?
Michael Preuss: Yes.
Patrick Thomas: Two quick things. Bill, I'm wondering if you can give us just a quick sense of with the midterms today here in the U.S., how are you guys expecting the results, especially if the Democrats win control of both houses to impact Bayer? Will there be more scrutiny either from a competition perspective or if there are specific policies there that maybe you can push for in a divided Congress or how that may impact the farmer. Can you just walk us through a little bit of some of the scenario planning there? And then lastly, I just want to ask, if the settlement gets the green light from the court and round up, can you -- when is it time to wave the mission accomplished kind of flag there with Crop Science since you took over and kind of give us a sense of how far down the line is that turnaround is in Crop Science.
William Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Patrick. I hope you're not in Chicago right now because...
Patrick Thomas: No, in New York today.
William Anderson: Okay. So then it's only -- what is it, 4:30.
Patrick Thomas: Yes.
William Anderson: Then I hope you have a big cup of coffee then at least. Yes, midterms, wow, that's kind of -- I know that's big news in America right now. And today is obviously the day. And I would say, look, Bayer, we operate in over 100 countries around the world. We deal with all kinds of parties and all kinds of governments. And the thing is our products at the end of the day, it's about people's health and about people's nutrition. And those are kind of -- in a sense, they're nonpartisan topics or they should be. And so we have very good relationships with members of both the main political parties in the U.S. I would say the -- some of the topics are really cross-cutting topics. So for example, cost of health care and the need for smart ways to pay for health care, that's becoming more of a bipartisan topic. Nutrition and the importance of improving nutrition standards. That's -- I would say, I don't know if it's bipartisan, but it's certainly not the monopoly of one party or the other. So we're going to work with reasonable people in both parties to try to get the best possible policies for America and for our mission, which is, yes, better health and better food for everyone in the world and everyone in America. America is our #1 market. It's the source of a lot of our innovation, and we have a deep commitment. When I was there, for example, recently in Ohio to announce our new facility, we had members of Congress from both parties. And they recognize that, hey, America was built on collaboration and at the end of the day, that people have to work it out because what's best for America is what's best for the people, which is things like availability of breakthrough medicines, availability of healthy food. And so yes, we'll work with both parties. Regarding when will we say mission accomplished? Well, I have to admit to my personality, I don't ever feel like the mission is accomplished because we can always do better. And I'm pleased, for example, that we're improving our margins in Crop Science. I'm pleased that we're having a really strong year in seeds and traits. We're kind of weathering the storm in Crop Protection, which has been a really down market. As you know, some of our competition has had really, really negative results, and we're kind of holding up. So I'm very proud of what we're accomplishing there, but we have more work to do. And we still have close to 1 billion people in the world that are food insecure, and we're tackling that. We're tackling that in America. We're tackling that in Brazil. I'm going to be in Africa in a couple of weeks in a couple of countries where we have major initiatives on how can we make them food self-sufficient. So I don't -- you're not going to see me waving the mission accomplished flag anytime soon, Patrick. But that's not because we're not making progress. I think we're going to continue to deliver better results every year, but mission is not going to be accomplished for a long time.
Michael Preuss: Next question comes from Antje Honing, Rheinische Post followed by Patricia Weiss of Reuters.
Antje Honing: Last time, you said that having 3 separate divisions is not the standard structure today. What does the impending end of the wave of lawsuits mean for the proposed spin-off? Is the spin-off of Consumer Health, for example, now on the horizon? And as always, my question for the employees, how many jobs has Bayer cut so far as part of the reorganization under DSO? I know it's not a job cut program, but in the result it is. And does this mean the job cuts are over now?
William Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Antje. And let's see, spin-off, litigation. Yes, where are we on that? I think it's pretty simple. We have -- we decided a few years ago that breaking up the company was not the right answer at the time because we needed to tackle these kind of 5 key issues. And now we've actually made a lot of progress on tackling those 5 key issues. But as I've explained also in the summer, we have a lot of momentum on those. We have some work to do. For example, we're improving our margins in Crop Science, but we got to get better at that. And that's a lot of change that's required to do that. We're rebuilding our pharma portfolio, but we have more to do on that. And in Consumer Health, we started turning the ship around where we were dependent a lot on price increases and not growing volume and now trying to get back towards volume growth, and we're seeing signs of that, but we're not satisfied with where we are. In addition to those things, -- we've got to really nail down the litigation. And then we have AI, which, frankly, 3 years ago, it was a novelty, but it wasn't really on our radar screen. And now it's become a major driver for productivity improvements. And basically, we are continually looking at the environment and saying, "Hey, what should we be doing? What's in the best interest of the mission, our employees, the shareholders? And it's really clear to us, we have so much going on, so much activity that's productive activity, and we're making gains every quarter. And it's really clear to us in management, the last thing we're going to do is stop all that, say, "Hey, put all that on hold for 2 to 3 years while we do some sort of spin-off or breakout. So we're not doing that today. And as I said, we continue to watch the environment. If the environment changes and we think, oh, something like that would be a good idea or would be warranted, you'll be the first to know, Antje. But until then, we are super focused on driving the momentum in this business and making Bayer the fastest, leanest, most innovative life science company in the world. By the way, I wouldn't have said that 3 years ago because people would have laughed. It would have just been a joke. But I can tell you, having cut out almost 70% of the management jobs, that's no joke in terms of being lean. We're demonstrating it with products like asundexian in terms of being fast. And I believe we're getting ready to demonstrate it on the innovative side with things like the blockbuster launches in Crop Science. So all that to say is you'll be the first to know if we decide to do something different. But right now, we're really going to be focused on capitalizing on our strengths. Regarding your jobs question, I think we're down about 14,000 jobs from our peak in 2023. As you said, it's -- that's not really a one-to-one correlation with Dynamic Shared Ownership. In fact, we've actually added a lot of jobs. For example, we've built out some big innovation centers in AI with software engineers and AI experts that are driving a really rapid deployment of AI across Bayer in some really cool ways. Those things are netted in that 14,000 number. So more than that when jobs went away, but then we've added new ones. You asked whether there's going to be more job cuts. Personally, I would say, yes, there's probably going to be fewer numbers of positions if I look out over the next 3 to 4 years because we're getting more efficient. And we're using AI to drive personal productivity. And so we probably won't have to hire as many people as we would have. So -- but I think that's good because, again, our mission is to drive as much innovation as possible for the people of the world, and we got to do that, yes, in the most effective way we can. Thanks Antje.
Michael Preuss: Next question comes from Patricia Weiss from Reuters, followed then by Ayisha Sharma from Endpoint News.
Patricia Weiss: I hope you can hear me well. Given your promising progress in mitigating legal risk by year-end, as promised actually, alongside renewed growth in Pharma, is Bayer finally ready to close the Monsanto chapter? And what is your strategy going forward? And secondly, when exactly do you expect the final court approval of the settlement?
William Anderson: Yes, I'm just taking a few notes here, Patricia. Yes. So I would say maybe I probably wouldn't use it -- I probably wouldn't say it the way you described it in terms of the chapters we're going through because how it feels like inside the company is that if we say go 3 years back, we had 3 promising divisions. We had a lot of -- we had a beautiful mission that people believe strongly in, but we were lacking some key products and innovation. We had this big litigation overhang. We had the -- quite a clunky management structure. By the way, I just want to be clear on this. So we had 16,000 managers and 102,000 people 3 years ago, okay? 16,000 managers, 102,000 people, that's actually about average or maybe a little better than average for big corporations. If you look at other companies like Bayer that are in complex businesses like pharmaceuticals or developing agriculture innovation, you would find that 16% of employees being managers is actually kind of low. But today, we're at 4,500. So we went from, I would say, a very traditional and typical management hierarchical approach, basically bureaucratic approach, which is every other 100,000-person company that I come across is pretty much like that to being super lean. And with that leanness has come speed. And so I guess we would say we started a new chapter 3 years ago. And now the question is, how far can we take that? And I've been actually all over Bayer pretty much every continent this year and many, many Bayer countries and Bayer sites talking to our people about, hey, what are we going to do now? What's our next act? The last 3 years, we've been fighting to save the company, but also to put in a fundamentally new foundation. It's like building a house. If you have an old house and you -- how to say, you have some things you like about it, but it needs a real -- a total makeover, you got to do some extreme surgery. And we've actually done that now. That part is behind us. But now the question is, hey, how far can we leverage that to bring our mission to life even more. And so I think this is the conversation we're having inside Bayer. We are moving into the next chapter. But the next chapter is going to be about doubling down on innovation. And we're going to use all the efficiency measures we have at our disposal through our system like Dynamic Shared Ownership, which allows extreme flexibility with resources. We're going to use that to drive a lot more innovation, investment in pipeline and better returns. So yes, I think we're there. Maybe -- I don't know if that answers your question in the way you asked it, but that's how we see it. In terms of the timing on the settlement, it's really hard to speculate. It could be any week now. I think is probably the best way to say it. We said we expected it before Christmas. I think we still expect it before Christmas. So that's coming up fast.
Michael Preuss: Okay. The next question comes from Ayisha Sharma from Endpoint News.
Ayisha Sharma: Just going back to the launch of asundexian and MFN. I know you said you're committed to sort of launching the medicine globally, including in Europe. But will that launch look any different or be structured any differently because of pricing pressures? So for instance, will there be more of a focus on private launches rather than public health systems? And secondly, you said that AI helped you compress time lines for the approval of asundexian in China. Could you perhaps share a bit more color on that? So when were you initially planning to secure an approval in China? And how far forward did AI bring that? And how exactly did AI help? I'd like to get a bit more color on that.
William Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Ayisha. So first, the question about asundexian, pricing, access, MFN, et cetera. Look, we are -- so with respect to MFN, we're working on that right now in the U.S., and that's an active topic for us, but we expect to have a good resolution that's good for America, good for Bayer. In terms of the access, our strategy is for sure, a broad strategy, not some sort of private-only thing because, again, this is a molecule that should, over the coming decades, save millions of lives. And we -- yes, our mission, which you see in the background, which is health for all, it doesn't say health for people with private insurance. And so we got to work on that. And we're going to fight really hard with everything we have to make sure that this medicine is covered broadly. And then your question about AI and China approval, let me just clarify. I was referring to AI and Dynamic Shared Ownership, helping accelerate the overall progress of asundexian so that we're able to launch it so fast. That includes the China approval, but I wasn't meaning specific to China, although we are doing a lot with AI in China as well. But we're using AI, for example, a lot of work in terms of compiling regulatory submissions, data cleaning and tabulation. We're using AI -- a huge amount of AI in manufacturing, in quality control, in things like validation runs and it would be impossible for me to list exactly all the places on that one molecule, but it is -- it's something that's really swept our company. And I can tell you because I -- well, so just again, think about Bayer now. We have 88,000 people, and we have 4,500 managers. So that means we have 83,000 individual contributors. And when I talk to Bayer managers and ask, "Hey, how many of you have had your jobs, your daily work transformed by AI, okay? The managers, I would say maybe 20% raised their hands. When I talk to individual contributors and particularly people like scientists, engineers, statisticians, doctors, agronomists, I mean, these are the people that are doing the most of our, I would say, our knowledge work, the heavy lifting on innovation, on analysis. When I talk to those people also in finance, legal, HR, enabling functions, and I ask them, okay, how many of you would say that AI has transformed your daily work, 80%, 70% will be very quick to raise their hands. This is -- I know there's a lot of talk in the big wide world about AI security risks. I think that's real. There's talk about AI replacing jobs, AI job Armageddon. We're not seeing that at Bayer. What we're seeing is AI is making Bayer people have more capability to drive innovation faster, create molecules faster, test them faster. I see it as a big win for our people, for our mission, for society. That's why I think the risk parts of AI need to be dealt with, but we shouldn't lose sight of what this can do for productivity, for things like improving the availability of nutritious food, improving the availability of breakthrough medicines. This is -- count me as an AI positive.
Michael Preuss: The next question comes from Jonas Jansen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, followed then by Andrew Noel from Chemical ESG.
Jonas Jansen: I would think that all your competitors also use AI in the same amount. So I was wondering how you still got the, I don't know, time -- the 1-year advantage and I was thinking if that's then mostly a DSO effect. And if you would say that Bayer maybe 5 years ago wouldn't have made it in the same time. What do you think?
William Anderson: Yes. Jonas, I'm glad you asked about that. And also mentioning competitors. And yes, probably the majority of the advantage we have on asundexian timing is the majority of that probably is from DSO because we -- most of that gain we locked in, in going from Phase II to Phase III really fast. And that -- the asundexian team was one of our front runners. It was one of our first DSO teams. So I think that's right. But that being said, I think we have an advantage in AI over many of our competitors for a really simple reason. I just talked about how AI is a tool that is driving the productivity of the individual contributors of the organization. It's not really a management tool. It's designing processes faster. It's designing molecules faster. That's not a management task. Managers aren't designing molecules. Managers aren't creating new chemical processes, okay? That is the work of scientists, engineers, biologists, agronomists, et cetera. And it's -- how would you say, this is really an accident for us because when we implemented DSO, we weren't thinking about AI. But now that we have DSO, we're loving it because we basically -- our strategy with AI is not, oh, the Management Board is going to figure out AI implementation and tell everyone what to do. That would be folly. That would be crazy. It would be like in the '80s, when I started my career, I remember my first job like my boss and my boss' boss, they didn't have computers, right? Like when you went into their office for a meeting, their desk had papers on it, but there was no computer, right? And so my point is my generation, we drove the computer revolution. The use of PCs, that was -- we did that, not our bosses. It's going to be the individual contributors who drive the AI revolution. And we've created a system that basically puts the individual contributors in charge of 95% of decision-making. And so the job of managers is to support that. And so I believe that's a key reason why Bayer is adopting AI so fast because in other companies, the managers are like gatekeepers on AI adoption. And in our company, the individual contributors are off to the races. So this is part of the reason why we feel so strongly about our strategy that we're on right now and not letting up because we think this is an incredible time of increased productivity for the firm.
Michael Preuss: And then we have last questions coming from Andrew Noel, Chemical ESG.
Andrew Noel: I just have one, probably a short one. I realize this topic isn't going to be foremost in your mind, but it's been a month since the Corteva split with Vylor. And there's been that debate around an integrated model or best is separate. I just wondered, have you had any feedback from the chain -- from Rodrigo about market share gains or maybe you've been able to benefit from the turbulence from their split or what have you. But like I say, I realize it's probably not a big topic 1 month in.
William Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Andrew. Look, I know this -- our people believe very strongly that we are able to best serve the grower, the farmer when we show up on their farm, and we have a whole suite of solutions. And by the way, PRECEON, which is our new short corn, that's a prime example. Some of the things we showed at our Crop Science Day in Iowa that I think some of you got to be a part of. These are growing systems that include not only better plants, better crop protection chemicals and then digital farming solutions that help in terms of all the decisions about land management, timing of the planting, all these things where they come together. And so we believe that's a great asset that we bring to farmers and growers. I think the results will be seen in the market in the quarters ahead. But I will say this, we're not primarily focused on competitors. We are primarily focused on the mission and driving innovation. I get to see this because Bayer, we have a football club. And the thing is in football, you either win or you lose. There's no -- how would I say, it's a win-lose sport. Sports is win-lose. Innovation, it's not like that. When I see a competitor that does something great, has some great innovation, I think, wow, that's awesome. Good for the customer. I wish we'd gotten there first, but I'm glad to see that innovation coming. There, we are not focused on the competition. We are focused on getting breakthrough products faster to patients, to farmers and to consumers. And I think we're starting to show what we can do with that. We've got a lot more in store. So thanks for the interest, Andrew. And yes, we're going to keep going.
Michael Preuss: All right. Thank you very much. Thanks to Judith. Thanks to Bill. And first and foremost, thank you very much for your questions and for your interest. This concludes our session today, and we wish you all a very good day. Thank you very much.
