At Merck, our fundamental responsibility is discovering, developing and delivering innovative medicines and vaccines that can make a difference in people's lives and create a healthier future. We believe that fulfilling this responsibility in a sustainable manner entails high ethical standards and a culture that values honesty, integrity and transparency in all that we do.
This website defines the environmental, social and governance issues of greatest significance to Merck and our stakeholders and provides more detail than ever before on our performance and commitments. Please read our 2006–2007 Corporate Responsibility Report or go to the sections below to find out more.
We are interested in your feedback. After reading about our work, please complete our survey or contact us with any questions or comments.
At Merck we believe that corporate responsibility is inherent in the way we do business and can provide us with new opportunities to create shared value. We are committed to innovative drug research and discovery, ethical business practices, and working to ensure access to medicines and vaccines for those who need them.
 Our Corporate Responsibility Approach |
Merck seeks to communicate accurately and transparently about our performance on a broad spectrum of topics and indicators. We believe that greater transparency on such matters is beneficial to our business because it helps to inform our stakeholders and also enables us to compare performance with peers on relevant parameters. We believe that this will help us focus on continuously improving the things that matter most.
Summary Data and Resources |
Merck is committed to addressing unmet medical needs through scientific excellence; we spent almost $5 billion annually on R&D in 2006 and 2007. In assessing our research priorities, we explore the scientific and commercial feasibility of conducting research to develop a product that is useful, considering available knowledge, theories, technologies and skills.
Researching Needed New Medicines and Vaccines |
Merck believes we have an important responsibility in improving access to medicines, vaccines and quality health care worldwide. Our fundamental role is to discover and develop innovative products that treat and prevent unmet medical needs. We are also working very hard through initiatives and partnerships to ensure that our products are accessible and affordable.
Improving Access to Medicines, Vaccines and Health Care |
Nothing is more important to Merck than ensuring the safety and quality of our medicines and vaccines. We dedicate millions of dollars each year and extensive resources to ensuring the safety profiles of our products are well characterized.
Ensuring Confidence in the Safety of Our Products |
At Merck, ethics are an integral part of our business decisions and inform how all employees conduct themselves everyday. Our commitment to ethics extends beyond the Company's boundaries: we actively promote the development of codes and standards for ethical and transparent business practices that can help to foster respect and promotion of human rights, limit corruption, ensure fair and open competition and encourage a better business environment, all of which are essential to economic growth.
Conducting Ourselves Ethically and Transparently |
Reducing our environmental impact and conserving key resources is consistent with our values as a health care company and makes business sense. Merck believes that by being careful about consuming energy, water and raw materials, and minimizing the impact on the environment of our wastes, air emissions, water effluents and products, we will be in a better position to operate more efficiently and sustainably.
Managing Our Environmental Footprint |
Public policy advocacy and engagement on critical issues forms a major element of our CR approach and practices. We engage with many stakeholders both to raise and inform policy debates and to work collaboratively to address societal challenges.
Advocacy and Outreach |
Merck aspires to have a positive impact on the communities in which we operate worldwide and we recognize our responsibility toward those affected directly or indirectly by our operations and activities. Through ongoing engagement and dialogue, we work to understand the concerns and needs of our communities, and we seek to respond by addressing local challenges in ways that build stronger communities and support the sustainability of our business.
Our Impact on Local Communities |
While our CR reporting is focused on priority environmental, social and governance issues that emerged from our materiality analysis, we recognize that certain other fundamental elements of our business also merit inclusion. In this section, we provide a description of our corporate governance structure and approach, we discuss how Merck ensures that we continue to attract and retain the right employees, we review our health and safety performance, we provide our perspective on our roles and responsibilities in promoting and respecting human rights, and we provide insights into our supply chain management.
Executing the Basics |
This website contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding product development, product potential or financial performance. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those projected. Merck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements in this website should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Merck's business, particularly those mentioned in the risk factors and cautionary statements in Item 1A of Merck's Form 10-K for the years ended Dec. 31, 2006 and 2007, and in any risk factors or cautionary statements contained in the Company's periodic reports on Form 10-Q or current reports on Form 8-K, which the Company incorporates by reference.
No Duty to Update
The information contained in this website was current as of the date noted. The company assumes no duty to update the information to reflect subsequent developments. Consequently, the company will not update the information contained in the website and investors should not rely upon the information as current or accurate after the noted date. |
The content on this page was last modified on Febraury 25, 2009.
PDF*)
