PITTSBURGH, October 16, 1999 - Bayer Corporation's Industrial Chemicals Division launched a new e-commerce site today, which enables customers in the water treatment industry to purchase ion exchange resins and water treatment chemicals online. This new e-commerce strategy is in response to Bayer's commitment to provide its customers with an efficient, cost-effective approach to product ordering and delivery.

Bayer's water treatment products - including Hydrazine Levoxin®, Bayhibit® PBTC, and Lewatit® ion exchange resins - are available for sale via Chemdex, an online agency targeted to specialty chemical suppliers and manufacturers. Customers may purchase Bayer products at www.chemdex.com using a credit card or procurement card.

"Our e-commerce strategy is ideal for all of our customers, including those in smaller water treatment companies who do not always need the large quantities of chemicals that we are accustomed to selling," explained Charles E. Fluharty, Business Unit Manager, Ion Exchange Resins and Water Treatment Chemicals, Bayer Corporation. "Our goal, which is to provide our customers with a quick and easy option for ordering and delivery, pointed to only one logical solution - electronic commerce."

Bayer's e-commerce strategy includes working with Chemdex as an online marketplace, linking buyers and sellers by efficiently distributing market information. According to Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, $43 billion of goods were purchased in this manner by businesses last year. This number is expected to jump to $1.4 trillion by the year 2003.

Through its agreement with Bayer, Chemdex receives orders from its customers, transmits the information to Bayer, which packages the products to customer specifications. The product is then shipped directly from Bayer's facility to the customer site according to the customer's selected shipping requirements.

According to Chemdex, the advantage of its site is its ability to lower transaction costs, especially in the specialty chemicals market, where chemists can spend a significant amount of time researching products through paper catalogs. With Web-based purchasing, these chemists can search electronically through multiple suppliers' products and cut their research time significantly. The cost of processing transactions also decreases since scientists can purchase products directly from their desktops.

"There is no doubt that today's explosive advances in business are all converging on the Internet," Fluharty said. "In the chemicals market, critical business processes such as customer service, order handling and processing, and sell-side distribution are being increasingly driven by e-commerce as a premier sales channel," Fluharty said. "For the Bayer Ion Exchange and Water Treatment Chemicals Group specifically, Web-based purchasing enables us to sharpen our focus on customers and enhance performance across our product lines."

For more information Bayer's ion exchange and water treatment technology, contact: Bayer Corporation, Industrial Chemicals Communications, 100 Bayer Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15205; (800) 662-2927 ext. 5688; FAX (412) 777-3899. Or, visit Bayer's ion exchange Web sites at www.H20Treat.com, www.ion-exchange.com, www.phosphonate.com, and www.hydrazinehydrate.com. For more information on Bayer Corporation, visit www.bayerus.com.

Bayer Corporation is a research-based company with major businesses in health care and life sciences and chemicals. The company had 1998 sales of $8.1 billion and employs more than 23,000 people. Bayer Corporation is investing $15 billion in capital expenditures and research and development from 1995 through the year 2004. 1999 capital investment and R&D expenditures are projected to total $1.6 billion. Bayer Corporation, with headquarters in Pittsburgh, is a member of the worldwide Bayer Group, a $31 billion chemicals and health care group based in Leverkusen, Germany.

Contact: William Allan
Industrial Chemicals Division
Media Line: (412) 777-2500
Fax: (412) 777-3899
bill.allan.b@bayer.com
www.bayerus.com