- 4 years ago
31 October 2022
Food and health are the two most important industry sectors globally and Bayer is a central player in both, says Ashraf-Al-Ouf, who tomorrow (Tuesday) steps into the role of CEO of the Bayer ANZ Group.
For this former pharmacist, taking on overall responsibility not just for the pharmaceutical sector, which he has led since 2019, but now adding the additional responsibility of Bayer Group CEO with oversight of the consumer and crop science divisions will be challenging, but this leader is eager for the opportunity.
“Health for all and hunger for none is a fantastic vision for Bayer, and I am so passionate about it because we are the only life sciences company that can say that,” Al-Ouf tells MedNews.
“Agriculture is an area which is fast evolving and in which Bayer is growing significantly, but we have general managers for consumer health and crop science and a strong pharma leadership team that is empowered to do what needs to be done to continue the very nice trajectory we are leading.
“My role is to support the organisation in aspects of reputation, culture, I&D and sustainability.”
Al-Ouf notes Bayer is the leading agricultural company in Australia while it sits between third and fourth place in healthcare, meaning it has the gravitas to take a forward position in both.
“This is exciting as I am leading a big and significant organisation that touches lots of lives in Australia and New Zealand, whether it’s in health or in food,” he says.
“We are touching two important sectors and we are leaders in both. This gives us strength as an organisation to develop our reputation on bringing food for people and health for an ageing population. It gives us the strength to be there as an innovation leader.
“People know about Bayer in pharma or in ag, but not many know how we are taking a leadership position across food and health.”
Al-Ouf says as he steps into the Group CEO role this week succeeding Joerg Ellmanns, he will be expanding his external engagement as “the face of Bayer”, supporting the company to increase its profile as a life science company focused on health and agriculture.
“If we talk about health, it’s about innovation and bringing new medicines to Australians and helping to improve chronic health,” he said.
“We have an ageing population, which means more need for healthier lives. You can’t continue to offer slight improvements on medication – we need to bring the next quantum leap, which is cure where possible, and that comes with innovation.
“Bayer has acquired many companies but two in particular, AskBio and BlueRock Therapeutics, are developing cell and gene therapies and [conducting] stem cell research that will change the landscape.
“But this is only one aspect of the future – the other is food. We will have an extra two billion people in the world by 2050. Where is the food going to come from? Even in Australia we have 900,000 people who are hungry. We need to feed the population by helping our farmers to do more with less.
“It’s a nice catchy phrase but of course it’s about the how, and at Bayer we are delivering on that. Globally, we use CRISPR tools to change the DNA of plants so they are more resistant to disease and deliver more yield.
“We have a program called FieldView that helps farmers make data-driven decisions as to when to use herbicide, for example, and how to produce more yield with what they have. It is about producing more food in a sustainable way, which is very good for climate change and sustainability.
“When you see that we are driving innovation in health and in agriculture, you want to talk about it – to politicians, to people, to everyone.
“As the face of Bayer, I need to work on the reputation of the organisation but also raise awareness about what we are doing and how we as a community, as a government, as all stakeholders can work together to have food security and support people’s future health needs.”
It’s not the first time this second-generation pharmacist who describes medicine as being “in my blood” has worked on the crop science side of the business – he did the same back in Indonesia until 2017. Much has changed in the past five years, so Al-Ouf is on a steep learning curve in areas such as crop genetics, weed management and the use of data.
“Yielding more with less is how we can respond to both health and food challenges, because if a farmer produces more with less, the price to the consumer is lower and it is the same for health,” he said. “If we are helping to cure people, then we are reducing the health burden on governments.
“It is a huge shift but when we have an ageing population, we need something different, and we have to partner with the government and across industry. Individual efforts will not yield much – everybody needs to work together.
“There will be budget pressure on governments, but we need a mindset shift and Bayer is here to help, whether it’s in food or in health.”
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