FRANKFURT: German chemicals giant Bayer said Tuesday it quadrupled its net profit in 2022, in part thanks to higher prices and strong demand for its glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The Leverkusen-based group warned however that it expected prices to come down again, leading to lower earnings in 2023.

Net profit climbed to 4.15 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in 2022, Bayer said in a statement, up from 1.0 billion a year earlier.

Group sales rose by 8.7 percent to 50.7 billion euros, in line with analyst expectations.

“2022 was a very successful year for Bayer despite the challenging environment,” said outgoing CEO Werner Baumann.

The results were boosted by record sales in the company’s agricultural division, up more than 15 percent year-on-year to 25 billion euros. Bayer said this was “in particular thanks to higher prices” for herbicides in all regions, at a time when “supply for glyphosate-based products was tight”.

But with supply chain constraints easing, those prices are likely to fall this year, Bayer added.

Sales at the group’s pharmaceuticals arm meanwhile grew just one percent in 2022. The unit faces pressure to launch new products to compensate for the expiration of patents on several blockbuster drugs in the coming years. The best-selling blood thinner Xarelto has already lost patent protection in Brazil. Eye medicine Eylea is also nearing patent expiration.

The group’s consumer health division, which sells over-the-counter drugs, saw sales grow by 8.4 percent on the back of strong demand for allergy and cold medicine.

Baumann said group sales were forecast to grow by a modest “two to three percent” in 2023 as the company braces for declining prices for herbicides as well as some pharma products.

Bayer expects pre-tax earnings (EBITDA) of between 12.5 and 13.0 billion euros, down from 13.5 billion in 2022.

Baumann will be replaced from June by former Roche executive Bill Anderson, following calls from activist investors for a change in direction at the German conglomerate.

The new investors, including Bluebird Capital Partners, want to go further still by splitting the company into an agricultural and a pharmaceutical group.

The proposal is controversial, with some experts saying a separate Bayer pharma company could become a takeover target.

During his tenure, Baumann oversaw the troubled 2018 takeover of US firm Monsanto for $63 billion.

Bayer inherited Monsanto’s legal woes around its Roundup weedkiller, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate.

Bayer has since faced a wave of lawsuits in the United States over claims that Roundup causes cancer, which the group denies.

The litigation has cost Bayer billions of euros and badly hurt its share price.