- In 2006, a partnership between Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead to develop a once-daily single tablet regimen to simplify HIV treatment resulted in the U.S. approval of ATRIPLA® (efavirenz 600 mg/ emtricitabine 200 mg, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg).1
- In 2006, Merck introduced ROTATEQ® (rotavirus vaccine, live, oral pentavalent), a vaccine against rotavirus infection that cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in children in the developing world each year. Since the introduction of ROTATEQ, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the impact of diarrheal disease will be reduced from 5th (causing 3.6 percent of deaths in 2004) to 23rd (estimated to cause less than 1 percent of deaths by 2030).2
- Also in 2006, we introduced GARDASIL® [Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (types 6, 11, 16, 18) vaccine, recombinant] , a vaccine to prevent cervical cancers, precancerous and dysplastic lesions and genital warts caused by the Human Papillomavirus. Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in women worldwide, resulting in nearly a half-million diagnoses and 240,000 deaths each year. Many of these deaths are in the developing world where access to preventive screenings is often rare and a vaccine could have a measurable impact on women’s health.
- In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ISENTRESS® (raltegravir), the first integrase inhibitor and the first antiretroviral treatment to target the integrase enzyme, which is essential for HIV replication. ISENTRESS has been approved for treatment-experienced patients who have HIV strains that are resistant to multiple antiretroviral drugs.
- In March 2009 Merck and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a not-for-profit virtual research and development organization dedicated to reducing the burden of malaria, announced a licensing agreement for an investigational drug candidate for the treatment of malaria in the developing world.
- Also in 2009, Merck and DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) entered into a collaborative agreement to support discovery and development of improved treatments for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
The content on this page was last modified on September 15, 2009.
Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA, and Schering-Plough Corporation, Kenilworth, NJ, USA, are now one company. We have combined our global operations under the name Merck & Co., Inc. We are working to update our corporate responsibility Web site to reflect our new, combined, global organization.
1ATRIPLA is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead in the United States, Canada and Europe. Merck and Gilead are working to register and distribute ATRIPLA in 106 developing countries around the world.
2Parashar UD, Hummelman EG, Bresee JS, Miller MA, Glass RI. Global illness and deaths caused by rotavirus disease in children. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2003.
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