Friedrich Bayer (born Friedrich Beyer, 6 June 1825 in

Barmen Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal. Barmen, together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the first electric ...

now

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

– 6 May 1880 in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

) was the founder of what would become

Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...

, a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

chemical A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

and

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

company. He founded the dyestuff factory ''Friedrich Bayer'' along with Johann Friedrich Weskott in 1863 in

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the Germany, German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was ...

, a flourishing city in the early industrialised region of the ''Wuppertal'' or Wupper Valley.

Friedrich Bayer changed the spelling of his surname from Beyer in his early twenties, due to the publicity gained by a fraudulent merchant from Leipzig bearing the same name. Friedrich Beyer from Barmen feared that the bad reputation of his namesake could damage his business and consequently changed his surname to Bayer.

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Leverkusen who's who
People from the Rhine Province Businesspeople from Wuppertal 1825 births 1880 deaths 19th-century German businesspeople German chemical industry businesspeople German company founders Bayer people Pharmaceutical company founders Scientists from Wuppertal {{Germany-business-bio-stub