Anderson will join Bayer as a member of the Board of Management on April 1, 2023, it said. Baumann would work closely with him on a smooth transition before retiring from Bayer after 35 years of service at the end of May 2023.

"Bill has an outstanding track record of building strong product pipelines and turning biotech breakthroughs into products," Bayer Supervisory Board Chairman Norbert Winkeljohann said in a statement.

The move comes after mounting shareholder pressure to remove Baumann, CEO since 2016, and install a new leader to revive the German pharma giant's share price.

Shares rose 6.5% on the news to the top of Frankfurt's blue-chip index.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Christoph Steitz; editing by Tom Sims)