In tough economic times, it is tempting for a company to retreat back to more parochial business concerns.  At Merck, however, we believe that good corporate citizenship and good governance have never been more important.  Doing the right thing – even when times are tough – makes good business sense.

The past few years have been a period of significant transformation for Merck.  We have worked hard to transform every aspect of our business – from how we approach research and development, to how we manufacture our products, to how we engage with our customers.  And the coming months will bring even more change, as we prepare to merge with our longtime partner, Schering-Plough.  But even as we work to align and integrate these two strong companies to create a global healthcare leader, we know there are some things that will not change. 
 
First and foremost among them is our ongoing commitment to putting patients first.  Discovering and developing novel medicines and vaccines is at the heart of who we are as a company.  But we also believe it is important to get our medicines and vaccines to the people who need them most.  In the United States, we are working with the Obama Administration and Congress to support the enactment of common-sense plans to reform the U.S. healthcare system. We also recently increased the income parameters for Merck's U.S. Patient Assistance Program to help more people benefit from our 50-year-old program.

We also recognize that most people worldwide still lack adequate access to medicines, vaccines and quality healthcare.  To help address this challenge, we have implemented a tiered pricing policy for our HIV medicines and certain vaccines that foster greater access to these essential therapies.  We have created numerous programs and partnerships in developing countries, emerging markets, and industrialized countries to help improve healthcare capacity and improve access to our products for all who can benefit, wherever they live.

It is important that we continue to remain true to our core values, one of which is to operate openly and ethically.  In this spirit, we have taken significant steps to improve transparency, committing to public disclosure of our financial support for third-party groups and for healthcare providers who speak on behalf of Merck or our products. 

We also want to do our part to tackle climate change.  To this end, we are improving energy efficiency across our business.  Since 2004 we have reduced energy demand at our research, manufacturing and major office sites by 28 percent, exceeding our goal of 25 percent reduction.  We have also made significant progress toward achieving our greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal.  Reducing our energy use and our GHG emissions not only benefits the environment, but also benefit Merck’s bottom line. 

In January 2009, Merck signed the United Nation's Global Compact, the world’s largest and most widely embraced corporate citizenship initiative.  Our signature signals our commitment to the Compact's 10 universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption, and expresses our intent to support and advance those principles within our company and entities controlled by it.

As reflected in the theme of this report, Merck is committed to ongoing, active engagement with our key stakeholders, and to ensuring that we are responsive to their concerns.  Our interactions help to ensure that our approach to corporate responsibility reflects both public expectations and our long-standing company values.

We are proud of what we have achieved thus far – but there is always room for improvement.  As a company, our corporate responsibility reporting and governance structure will continue to evolve.  We look forward to continuing to engage actively with our key stakeholders to make sure we remain on the right track.  As you will see, this engagement is a major theme of this year's report.

I believe our long-standing commitment to good corporate citizenship will strengthen the new Merck we are striving to build, and will provide a strong foundation of shared values through which Merck, our employees, and our many global stakeholders can benefit.

Richard T. Clark
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
September 2009