ri i i i T h m nTTTTi i i i t i t n i i i i T r r BUSINESS
BAYER TRADES ON WALL STREET But bad news that postponed its planned September listing still haunts company COMING OUT Stock market and Bayer executives celebrate the firm's Wall Street debut.
B
AYER MADE ITS DEBUT ON
the New York Stock Exchange last week under the ticker symbol BAY. A week before the listing, Bay-
er disclosed that 100 patients died after taking the company's cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol— twice the number Bayer reported when it voluntarily withdrew the drug in August. Its plan to list in September was postponed when the company withdrew the drugfollowingthe first reports of patient deaths. Chairman Manfred Schneider said the listing would help the firm "gain access to the U.S. capital market" and allow it to "make use of our shares for future acquisitions." It will be a tough sell. Schneider acknowledged that
SCIENCE
ANTHRAX PROJECT ON THE INTERNET PROTECTION The search is on for a target drug (indicated by arrow) that will stop the protein heptamer from forming toxin.
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IMAGE
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Idle computer time will be used to identify new anthrax drug candidates
P
ERSONAL COMPUTER USERS
worldwide can now participate in a project to search for molecules that can counter the effects of anthrax. The project, backed by Intel and Microsoft, was launched last week by the Centre for Computational Drug Discovery, which is funded by the National Foundation for Cancer Research and based in the University of Oxford chemistry department. It is a direct re-
C & E N / J A N U A R Y 2 8 , 2002
sult of the recent occurrences of anthrax in the U.S. The project will use screensaver software, developed by the Oxford group and the distributed-computing technology company United Devices, to screen a database of some 3.5 billion molecules as potential inhibitors of the anthrax toxin. "Anthrax and other related bioterrorist threats demand a very rapid response," points out Oxford chemistry professor W. Graham Richards, director of the drug discovery center. "Massively distributed computing provides efficient and speedy ways
the company's plastics and chemicals businesses have experienced weak demand, contributing to poor financial performance. For the first nine months of 2001, net income was $732 million, a drop of $662 million—48%—compared with the year-earlier period. And aside from the billions in compensation claims Bayer could face because of Baycol, the company faces other hurdles. For one, it is reorganizing itself as a management company with four separate units: health care, crop science, polymers, and chemicals. Despite continuing pressure from investors to spin off or sell the pharmaceutical unit, Schneider said Bayer would only seek minority partners. But he implied a bit more flexibility with the company's chemical portfolio. "We are ready for a partnership that could lead to a joint venture." After the first day of trading in New Y)rk, Bayer's shares closed at $33.17-MARC REISCH
to discover new drug candidates that can protect against these threats." The anthrax toxin, he points out, comprises three proteins: protective antigen, lethal factor, and edema factor. Individually these components are nontoxic. But when the protective antigen, a monomer, comes into contact with the surface of a biological host cell, it forms a heptameric complex—a ring of seven monomers. The complex then binds with the other two components toforma toxin that penetrates and kills the cell. The Oxford group used its own novel software to identify the site where the lethal factor binds to the complex. "Protection against anthrax could be afforded by finding a molecule that prevents the lethal factor binding to the heptamer," Richards says. PC users can download the software from http:/Avww.intel. com/cure.-MICHAEL FREEMANTLE HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
