Merck has five decades of experience in developing public/private partnerships, especially those focused on improving global health, but also on health and science education, environmental protection and ethical business practices. Such partnerships are driving the evolution of private sector involvement in meeting sustainability challenges and have begun to play important roles meeting societal challenges.

For example, our partnerships on health include a variety of ventures, with diverse arrangements and participants, various legal statuses and modes of governance and management, assorted priorities and contributions by participants, and many different impacts. They range from small collaborations focused on distributing one product to larger entities fighting disease. Our objectives for a health partnership might include developing a product; donating a product such as the Merck MECTIZAN^®(ivermectin) Donation Program; strengthening health services, such as the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships; educating the public and health care providers about diseases or health challenges, such as with the Merck Childhood Asthma Network; and ensuring the proper delivery of quality medical products, such as with the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, a coalition of pharmaceutical and medical supply manufacturers and nongovernmental organizations engaged in the delivery and administration of needed medicines, vaccines and medical supplies to the developing world and in response to disaster situations worldwide.

In the past, Merck, like others in the private sector, might have just written a check and taken a passive role as a funder. Today, we feel it is important to go beyond traditional philanthropy and to be much more involved in the development, implementation, management and evaluation of these partnerships that address societal issues, offering insights and capabilities that have worked well in the private sector to tackle analogous problems.

In our partnerships, Merck provides expertise in areas such as in R&D, technology, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and management. In some cases we also make a product or service available to the developing world through donations or, more sustainably, at an affordable price. Academic institutions may also be involved in our partnerships also, providing research or knowledge about a disease area. Public sector partners, or charitable organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, can help fund the development of a partnership. But governments are also critical in providing local leadership and policy direction, and in freeing up infrastructure and resources to address specific challenges. Although our partnerships are wide-ranging and diverse, Merck’s approach is the same across all of them, stemming from decades of experience: we engage with partners who have the same ultimate goals as ours. We believe that each partner must be willing to put the group’s agenda ahead of its own, recognize the limits of its own expertise, and value the expertise of others. In this way, the efforts of the partners add up to more than the sum of the parts.

Beginning in 2009, for all public/private partnerships to which we provide financial support, we require an annual progress and evaluation report describing program activities for the year including progress in accomplishing key program goals, objectives and expectations. The progress report should include key milestones, accomplishments, project outcomes, program challenges and deficiencies and lessons learned. Upon our determination that the progress report is satisfactory, subsequent grant payments will be made.

In addition, at Merck, we believe that we have an important role to play in contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Where applicable, by 2010, we will also request from these organizations a report on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. For an overview of how Merck is contributing to the health care-related MDGs click here.

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.