Bayer

On March 6th, the company that invented the world's most famous painkiller plans to drape its 122-metre high corporate headquarters in Leverkusen in Germany with 22,000 square metres of fabric, turning it into a giant packet of Aspirin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the drug.

However, it has come in for some less flattering publicity recently after a lawsuit filed against the company by Holocaust survivors claimed that it had conspired with the Nazis to buy concentration camp prisoners and conduct human experiments on them for profit.

An international chemicals and healthcare group, Bayer employs around 143,000 people worldwide and has operations in nearly every country on the globe. With annual sales of 55 billion deutschmarks (€28 billion) and pre-tax profits of DM5.1 billion (€2.6 billion) in 1997, it is capitalised at around €23 billion (£18 billion).

Novartis

The Swiss company was formed in 1996 following a merger of Sandoz and CibaGeigy.

Novartis, which comes from the Latin term novae artes or new arts, operates through 275 affiliates in 142 countries. It is active in the fields of health care, consumer health and is a world leader in agriculture.

Based in Basel in Switzerland, the company reported sales of 31.7 billion Swiss francs (€19.9 billion) last year.

Rhone Poulenc

The French life sciences and speciality chemicals company has had a busy year.

In June, some 30 per cent of the capital of its speciality chemicals subsidiary Rhodia was floated. Then in December, Rhone Poulenc and Germany's Hoechst announced plans to merge their drug and agricultural businesses into a new Strasbourg-based company to be called Aventis. However, the proposals have run into opposition from the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the German group's main shareholder which is still reviewing the deal.

Headed by chairman and chief executive officer Jean-Rene Fourtou, the group returned to the black in 1998, announcing profits of 4.2 billion French francs (€640 million) against a loss of nearly five billion francs in 1997.

Roche

The group is active in the discovery, development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals and diagnostic systems. It is also one of the world's largest producers of vitamins and of fragrances and flavours.

Founded in Basel in 1896, the company has operations in more than 100 countries and employs about 70,000 people. It reported a 31 per cent increase in turnover last year to 24.7 billion Swiss francs (€15.5 billion). Roche is confident about the future and is particularly upbeat about its anti-obesity drug, Xenical.