Bayer Q3 earnings beat expectations on pharma

Frankfurt : Bayer, the German drugmaker that is buying U.S. seed company Monsanto, beat expectations for third-quarter earnings on gains in pharmaceuticals and forecast-beating farming pesticides.

Third-quarter profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for one-off items, rose 6 percent to 2.68 billion euros ($2.92 billion), above the average estimate of 2.52 billion in a Reuters poll among analysts.

Bayer, the inventor of aspirin and maker of Yasmin birth control pills, now aims to increase full-year core earnings per share from continuing operations by a high-single-digit percentage, compared with a previous goal of a mid- to high-single-digit percentage gain.