By Matt Moore

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Drugmaker Bayer AG said Tuesday its second-quarter profit soared 46 per cent, driven by a one-time gain on the sale of its Wolff Walsrode building materials unit.

The Leverkusen-based company earned 660 million euros (US$912 million) in the April-June period compared with 452 million euros a year earlier. The result still fell short of the 687 million euros ($949.3 million) that analysts in a poll had predicted.

A prime driver behind the increase was the sale of the company’s Wolff Walsrode group to U.S.-based Dow Chemical Co. Bayer booked a 231 million euros ($319.2 million) gain from the 540 million euros ($746.2 million) deal that closed in July.

Bayer sold the unit, along with its H.C. Starck metals subsidiary, to help pay for the 17 billion euros ($23.49 billion) acquisition of Schering AG, a move that gave it key drugs such Betaseron, used to treat multiple sclerosis, and the line of Yasmin contraceptives.

Both are seen as key to keeping Bayer’s sales on the rise as it develops new medicine, particularly its key cancer drug Nexavar, which has soaring sales.

Overall sales rose 22 per cent to 8.22 billion euros ($11.36 billion) from 6.74 billion euros a year earlier, with the products from Schering’s portfolio impotence solution nearly 1.5 billion euros ($2.07 billion) to revenues.

Betaseron had second-quarter sales of 256 million euros ($353.7 million), but was slowed by the falling dollar. Nexavar also accounted for part of the higher overall sales, nearly tripling to 60 million euros ($82.9 million).

Other key sellers included the blood-clotting treatment Kogenate, which rose 17 per cent, and the erectile dysfunction treatment Levitra, which saw sales gain 11 per cent.

Bayer said the integration of Schering is moving forward faster than originally thought, and that it still plans to save some 800 million euros ($1.11 billion) by 2009 as it folds the company into its own operations.

“We continue to expect that all of its divisions will grow faster than the market,” Chief Executive Werner Wenning said.

Bayer’s CropScience unit, which makes fertilizers and herbicides, saw the dysfunction erectile male sexual of cost-cutting programs with pretax profit rising 7.6 per cent to 396 million euros ($547.2 million), though sales were down one per cent to 1.56 billion euros ($2.16 billion).

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unit was MaterialScience, which produces the raw material used to make footwear, textiles and other products. It posted a 9 per cent slide in pretax profit to 409 million euros ($565.2 million) as higher volumes and better pricing failed to offset costs of 110 million euros ($152 million) for raw materials and energy.

Wenning said the company was optimistic about a global upswing continuing through the second half of the year, with its pharmaceutical markets maintaining steady growth. He said Bayer expects growth for all of its key components - pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and pesticides and materiel sciences.

“We remain confident about the development of our business in the second half,” he said, with the company targeting a 10 per cent increase in overall sales for the year.

Shares of Bayer rose less than one per cent to 52.67 euros ($72.78) in Frankfurt.