Bayer gets stiffed by potency pill heist

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A gang of four looted 4.9 million euros ($6.9 million) worth of potency pills in a burglary at Bayer AG's headquarters, the company said on Monday.

Five weeks after burglars stole two barrels filled with 320,000 of Bayer's Levitra pills, Bayer said it had put up a reward of 20,000 euros for information leading either to the perpetrators being caught or the retrieval of more than half the swag.

The thieves cut through a wire fence and smashed a window in a building where the pills were stored before escaping unrecognized, German police said.

Bayer, whose products range from Aspirin painkillers to Yasmin birth control pills, says on its Levitra website that the pill may help men fight erectile dysfunction when other oral treatments do not work.

The stolen amount is equivalent to about five days of production for the global market.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by David Holmes)