Merck’s Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals

The private sector, including the research-based pharmaceutical industry, has an important role to play in contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

At the 2008 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Merck joined UN Secretary Dr. Ban Ki-moon, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and leaders from other private and public sector organizations to endorse a "Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals," pledging to work together to accelerate progress toward the MDGs.

"We believe that, as a global community, we can all help resolve problems and aspire to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals when we find ways to work together," said Dr. Stefan J. Oschmann, President, Human Health, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Canada, who represented Merck at the Forum.

Below is an overview of how Merck is contributing to the health care-related MDGs.

Reducing Childhood Mortality by 2015 (Goal 4)

For more than a century, Merck has worked to discover, develop and market medicines and vaccines for people in need of such products, including children, around the world. These products have saved the lives of or improved the quality of life for millions of people globally.
Merck has developed and manufactured pediatric vaccines to help protect children from many of the most common and serious childhood diseases including chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), hepatitis A and B, rotavirus and human papillomavirus (HPV).
In 2006, Merck introduced ROTATEQ^® (Rotavirus Vaccine, Live, Oral, Pentavalent), a vaccine for prevention of gastroenteritis, which causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in children in the developing world each year.
Merck is an active partner in the GAVI Alliance, a collaboration between the private and public sectors that is committed to the mission of saving children's lives and protecting people's health through the widespread use of vaccines.
Through the Merck Vaccine Network-Africa, Merck is working to increase the capacity to deliver vaccines in Africa by training health professionals in vaccine management and immunization services.
Merck is working with the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health on an innovative partnership to vaccinate all infants born in Nicaragua during a three-year period against rotavirus. To date, more than 769,120 doses of ROTATEQ^® have been administered through the immunization program and the country has achieved rates of rotavirus vaccination that are among the highest in the world.
Merck is committed to including pediatric clinical trials in all of the Company's drug and vaccine development strategies worldwide, including for our HIV and AIDS medicines.
Merck is an active member of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Partnership for Pediatric AIDS Treatment.
Merck supports mothers2mothers (m2m), a multinational NGO engaged in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV through education and treatment to reduce infant and maternal morbidity and mortality. By the end of 2008, m2m was operating in 448 sites in 7 African countries, employing over 1,300 HIV-positive mothers and reaching 1 million mothers a year with messages of health education and empowerment.
In 2008 Merck supported the U.N. Foundation's Measles Initiative with a $2 million grant for disease surveillance activities in Africa. Since 2001, the Measles Initiative has contributed to saving lives by supporting the vaccination of more than 600 million children in more than 60 countries. Merck's support will help reduce measles deaths by 90 percent by 2010.

Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases (Goal 6)

Halting and Beginning to Reverse the Spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015 (Goal 6, Target 7)

For more than 20 years, Merck has been at the forefront of the effort to respond to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.
Merck has licensed four compounds from two classes of potent anti-retroviral medicines during the past three years to the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) for development, manufacture and distribution of the compound as a microbicide for the prevention of HIV infection for use in developing countries.
In 2006, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved ATRIPLA^® (efavirenz 600mg/ emtricitabine 200mg/ tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300mg), a once-daily, single tablet combination regimen for the treatment of HIV infection.¹ Merck is working with Gilead to register and provide access to ATRIPLA in 106 countries throughout the developing world.
In 2007, the U.S. FDA approved ISENTRESS^® (raltegravir), the first integrase inhibitor and the first anti-retroviral treatment to target the integrase enzyme, which is essential for HIV replication.
While Merck's decade-long effort to develop a HIV vaccine ended in September 2007, when the Company halted a phase II clinical trial of its investigational HIV vaccine because it was not effective, Merck remains deeply committed to analyzing the data and sharing it as broadly and as quickly as possible to add to the knowledge base for the entire field of HIV vaccine research.
Since March 2001, Merck has had in place a differential pricing policy whereby infected people in those countries hardest hit by the HIV and AIDS pandemic and least able to afford treatment can obtain Merck anti-retrovirals at prices at which Merck makes no profit.
Through programs like Merck’s public/private partnership with the Government of Botswana and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and our work in China and elsewhere, Merck has helped to establish trailblazing programs to address HIV and AIDS in countries around the world.
Merck is helping businesses in Africa develop and implement comprehensive workplace HIV and AIDS programs through the Blueprint for Business Action in Africa against HIV and AIDS tool, which is available free online.
Merck’s HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria Workplace Policy provides Merck employees and their dependents with appropriate disease prevention programs and treatment.

Developing Public/Private Development Partnerships to Improve Access to Medicines in Developing Countries (Goal 8, Target 4)

Merck has long been a pioneer in developing public/private partnerships to foster access to medicines and vaccines in developing countries around the world.
In 1987, Merck committed to donate our drug MECTIZAN^® (ivermectin) for the treatment of river blindness (onchocerciasis) to all who need it for as long as necessary. Working through a unique, multisectoral partnership involving the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and UNICEF as well as ministries of health, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and local communities, today the program reaches more than 80 million people annually in more than 30 endemic countries. Also, nearly 90 million treatments of MECTIZAN were reviewed and approved in 2008 by the MECTIZAN Expert Committee/Albendazole Coordination, which has been entrusted by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline with the responsibility of reviewing and approving applications for free MECTIZAN and albendazole for a second disease, lymphatic filariasis (LF).
Merck is a founding member of the UN/Industry Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI), a cooperative endeavor of five multilateral organizations and nine research-based pharmaceutical companies to help improve access to more affordable HIV-related medicines and diagnostics for developing countries and those hardest hit by the HIV pandemic.
Since 2000, Merck has worked in partnership with the Government of Botswana and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build institutional and management capacity, strengthen Botswana’s health care system, promote behavior change and support grassroots efforts to tackle HIV and AIDS.
In 2005, Merck announced a public/private partnership with China’s Ministry of Health that is providing HIV and AIDS prevention, patient care, treatment and support.
Through the GARDASIL Access Program Merck aims to donate at least 3 million doses of Merck's cervical cancer vaccine to support vaccination programs in lowest income nations.
Merck is a founding member of the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD), an alliance of private voluntary organizations and medical product manufacturers dedicated to raising standards of medical donations to meet the needs of underserved populations and disaster victims around the world.
Merck helped establish the Partnership for Disease Control Initiatives (PDCI), a coalition of pharmaceutical companies and NGO partners engaged in specific disease control or elimination programs for neglected tropical diseases. The coalition seeks to identify opportunities to collaborate and, ultimately, to integrate treatment strategies and programs where feasible, while reducing undue burden on local governments and communities. PDCI works closely with the WHO, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other interested parties.

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.

¹ ATRIPLA^® (efavirenz 600 mg/emtricitabine 200 mg, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg) 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 where convenient treatment options are critical to patient compliance and adherence to therapy.