In ensuring the realization of health as a universal human right, Merck believes that governments have primary responsibility for managing a health system that ensures the health of those living within their borders, a role that is recognized in the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the international treaties that follow from it.

The role of the pharmaceutical industry in respecting and promoting health as a human right is a complex - and controversial - one. We believe that at a basic level we play an important role in supporting this right through our core activity of discovering, developing and delivering medicines and vaccines to address unmet medical needs. We also recognize our ethical duty to support governments in their efforts to protect the right to health by "doing no harm." We do this in a number of ways as described on this Web site, including by:

Beyond these efforts, we also have the ability – and we believe the responsibility — to support the right to health and effect positive change. We do this through policies and actions to promote timely product registration, improved access to new medicines and vaccines, and through partnerships and public policy advocacy positions that seek to strengthen health care capacity and address deep-rooted and multi-faceted barriers to access in ways that are aligned with our business mission and core capabilities.

Others have roles and responsibilities too. Industrialized countries, where most research in life sciences takes place, must continue to foster innovation by funding basic research and supporting related institutions, and by recognizing the value of innovative medicines and vaccines. Developing countries must continue to make health care a budget priority, remove taxes and import duties on medicines that unnecessarily raise the price of medications, and seek to limit product diversion to richer countries by price arbitragers. Emerging or middle-income countries should do the same and also recognize that they can and should pay more for medicines than the poorest countries, rather than take actions that remove incentives for innovation.

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.