Bayer named former Roche executive Bill Anderson as its new CEO on Wednesday, potentially ending a dramatic and difficult chapter during which its current chief executive, Werner Baumann, presided over the disastrous $63 billion purchase of the agriculture firm Monsanto.
Anderson will take over April 1, becoming the first American to run the 160-year-old conglomerate, which invented aspirin and later played a major role in the development of hormonal contraceptives, hemophilia clotting factors, and the blood thinner Xarelto. He will become chairman on June 1.
