Dr. Jörg Thomaier has just entered his 28th year at Germany’s Bayer AG, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The company now manages a portfolio of over 50,000 patents, with a large amount related to cardiovascular, oncology, and gene and cell therapeutics, as well as plant gene traits.
As part of a major restructuring initiated last year, Dr. Thomaier’s team will shrink from 190 to 160 people, of which around 90 are qualified patent attorneys. The department, which reports directly to the group’s General Counsel Thomas Laubert, is divided into a few smaller teams that overlook crop patents, healthcare patents, and patent litigation, as well as trademarks. The portfolio’s hotspots include Europe, the US, Japan, China, and Brazil – the latter of which Dr. Thomaier says is very important for crops.
ip fray requested an interview with Dr. Thomaier to discuss how Bayer and its view of patents has shifted over the past 27 years, his wins and his losses, and why IP leaders must have a technical background if they want to be “real, first-class, successful” professionals.
Can you give us a brief overview of your career?
I joined Bayer in 1997, after training in phosphorus organic chemistry and getting a PhD. For the first couple of years, I worked for the crop, polymer and animal health businesses, before receiving my approval as a European patent attorney. In 2004, I was appointed chief patent counsel of the healthcare division. And in 2011, I was promoted to Head of IP Bayer Group.
Outside work, I am married and have a son studying law and a daughter playing for Germany’s top handball team, HB Ludwigsburg.
What are some of your biggest highlights at Bayer?
That’s relatively easy. One of my biggest personal wins was when we acquired Schering for €17 billion in 2006 – it was a big thing at the time because we came in as a “white knight”, buying out rival Merck’s stake of more than 20%, and then successfully integrating Schering’s IP department. The spin-offs of our chemical and polymer businesses, Lanxess AG and Covestro AG were also a huge success for my team and I.
Why have you stayed so long at the company?
Right now we are in turbulent waters, but we have faced worse as a company in the past. I have three major reasons why I have stayed this long:
- The IP team has, and always has had, a great micro-climate: functional, very professional, and most people have lovely “personal vibrations”. As much as I can be, being the boss, I am on an almost-friendship level with all of my direct reports and my IP team.
- I like the business we are in. Contributing my work to something that helps people stay or become healthy, and stay or become well-fed is more attractive to me than building fast cars. I find it to be more of a “real” proposal – something that makes sense to do.
- I have always been treated safely and fairly. Even in crises, I was fairly treated – the company had my back on every transition. That is what I always expected and what I have always seen.
How has the role of your team within the wider company changed since you first joined?
Before I started, it was really a bureaucratic administration. It was a place where researchers, chemists and pharmacists “parked” in. The fights over patents in the pharma and crop fields had only just started.
This meant that the company struggled to see the value of the patent team. Promotions and so on were a sort of “neglected child”. On a rational level, most managers knew IP was super important. But the value for the IP team was not always there. I felt a little stuck on my career path for a while. In the IP industry, I always say: “If the economy is good, you get a call from a headhunter every week. If it is bad, you get it once a month.”
But then the U.S. introduced a mechanism (“Paragraph IV”) allowing generic drugmakers to challenge the patents of brand-name drugmakers as a means to secure early market entry – and that became a real business. Challenges happen all the time now, meaning you have to be prepared to defend all the time and make sure your patents are of high quality.
That, in turn, triggered the need to start educating internally.
As of today, everyone working in my patent department must already have – or earn – their qualification as a European or US (or other) patent attorney or agent. When I started, only a minority of the team had the qualification. I ensured that anyone who joins my department must take the exam.
Because we had litigation, we had to defend, we won a few cases, and we started earning money – in some cases, we even got license fees in the triple digits. That lifted the IP visibility further and further.
In hindsight, I am glad I stayed. When asked why they like their jobs in leadership, many people say it is the power over people. But I think it is the ability to achieve things through and with people. I am still glad to be here.
What goals did you set out for yourself as CEO of IP when you were first appointed and how have they fared?
I have been successful in some things:
- Getting together a structured, global IP organisation. Which I achieved.
- A true IP litigation team. I wanted to be in a position where we could successfully defend our products – and we have a huge success rate. We haven’t lost any major disputes in about 15 years. Currently, we are defending blockbuster drug Xarelto based on a really inventive so-called secondary patent in Europe in a double-digit number of countries and a double-digit number of cases.
Some goals, however, I have not quite achieved yet:
- For example, I still feel IP does not yet have full respect and appreciation from the general counsel and top management. In some pharmaceutical companies, patent departments are separate units. In my opinion, IP should be even closer to the board and should be something separate from research and legal. But such recognition has grown since I first joined and it is still good in comparison to other companies. This has also been because of our divestment of the chemical and polymer businesses, which do not as critically rely on patents for survival compared to the life sciences products.
- Our actual IP management system is not ideal. It was inherited. I should have pushed back earlier – maybe three or four years earlier – saying: I know it is your baby, but it doesn’t work for us anymore.
Some IP heads start their careers as lawyers, while others as businessmen. You started out as a scientist. How have you leveraged this particular background in your current role?
In my opinion, you can only be a real first-class successful patent professional if you do it with a scientific background. I like the European way of qualifying patent attorneys: being a scientist and then getting some legal qualifications, before going into management. No just-lawyer, and certainly no just-business person could replace me with the same performance, because you need to understand the topics. Yes, this role involves business, strategic and legal questions – but they very frequently involve technical discussions too.
I usually have to explain at least the technical topics from scratch when I discuss these issues with legal colleagues, who get in touch for the first time on a case. But this need to explain to others has also worked to my advantage because it might help to understand what might be a problem for the judge – IP judges are usually pure lawyers assisted by specific experts.
But someone who leads in the IP world must be someone with a scientific degree, as well as some legal training. This is my clear conviction.
What would you like to see Bayer achieve in the next five-to-10 years?
I’d like to see the IP streamlined a little. And I’d like for us to optimise the way we work more. It would also be great to digitalise the team more: see what AI is capable of doing and then make the most of it. Bayer is currently cooperating with AI start-up Philipa to help with patent drafting work.
Generally, I’d also like to see Bayer back on the right track, so it can be financially strong again. I am pretty sure that will happen, and 2025 will be a pretty decisive year.