Bayer CropScience has decided to integrate the full range of its Research & Development activities in the three operative business units Crop Protection, BioScience, and Environmental Science into one global organization. The new unit will be led by Dr. C. David Nicholson. He will join Bayer CropScience as a member of the Executive Committee, effective March 1, 2012.

The new Research & Development function will bring together about 4,300 scientists from the company’s key research centers and development sites across the globe. With an annual budget of more than €720 million (2010), Bayer CropScience ranks among the most research-intensive companies in the industry.

Born in the UK, Dr. C. David Nicholson graduated in pharmacology, earning his B.Sc. from the University of Manchester and his Ph.D. from the University of Wales. He has been employed in research and development in the biopharmaceutical industry since 1978, and most recently held executive positions in R&D at Merck Inc. and before that with Schering-Plough and Organon in the US. David Nicholson has also spent more than 10 years of his professional career in Germany and the Netherlands.

Nicholson is joining Bayer CropScience to drive the company’s approach to refocus its research and development activities so that it can better respond to the future development of global markets. As part of this approach, the company is placing increasing emphasis on the BioScience business unit, with its seeds and traits, and on new growth areas in agrochemical research, such as plant health and stress tolerance. The company’s plans call for a doubling of annual R&D spend in BioScience between 2010 and 2015 (2010: about €200 million). The annual R&D budget of Bayer CropScience as a whole is set to gradually rise by about 20 percent over the same period, to more than €850 million.

• Bayer CropScience AG, Monheim am Rhein, Germany