^* Includes MECTIZAN Donation Program

^** The decline in patient enrollment in our corporate U.S. Patient Assistance Program (PAP) is attributed in part to an increasing number of patients with prescription drug coverage, including Medicare Prescription Drug Program, which began January 1, 2006. In parallel, we have seen a shift in usage of the PAP to patients under the age of 65. This represents a shift from past years, showing that more and more seniors are obtaining prescription medicines through the Medicare Prescription Drug Program. Another contributing factor to usage decline was the removal of two Merck products – ZOCOR^® (simvastatin) and PROSCAR^® (finasteride) – from the product list at the beginning of 2007 (six months after patent expiry) once patients had broad access to lower-cost generic equivalents.

Highlights for several of the major programs launched or expanded in the past three years are listed below:

2009

• On February 25, 2009, The Merck Company Foundation launched a new initiative, The Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health (OMH). Supported by a $15 million commitment through 2013, this initiative is designed to improve health care delivery among those populations most at risk for diabetes – African-American, Hispanic and Native American adults in the United States. The Alliance will engage a range of health care stakeholders, including patients, providers and health system leaders, in supporting proven approaches to comprehensive diabetes prevention and management.
  
  Through a rigorous, competitive application process, the Foundation selected five grantee programs from among the more than 190 applications received from around the United States. The program sites are: Camden, NJ; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Fort Washakie, WY and Memphis, TN. Funding will support community-based efforts to decrease diabetes disparities and enhance the quality of health care by improving prevention and management services among low-income and underserved populations with a high prevalence of type 2 diabetes.
  
  The University of Michigan's Center for Managing Chronic Disease will serve as the Alliance Program Office and support the program efforts of the grantee communities over the next five years as well as provide leadership in building the Alliance as a national partnership.
  
  In response to the recent acceleration and expansion of a national food shortage crisis, Merck has launched Rx to Fight Hunger, a Community Initiative to increase access to healthy foods and nutrition and to support the food bank safety net for children and seniors in our communities. Through contributions, volunteering, and conferences to speak out about the urgency of addressing the sharp drop of US food supplies, Merck hopes to lessen the effects of malnutrition and food insecurity on vulnerable individuals and families.
  
• As of June 2009, Merck has made more than $200,000 in financial contributions to local food banks and pantries - particularly in communities where Merck has a major presence - and to organizations, such as Meals on Wheels Association of America, that support in-home meal delivery programs for seniors. In addition, food drives were held at most major Merck facilities in the US. In February 2009, Merck - in partnership with the Healthcare Institute of New Jersey and the Liberty Science Center - hosted the Rx to Fight Hunger conference - a no-cost, participatory conference for funders in the NJ, NY, PA and DE region).
• In January 2009, Merck initiated a Global Volunteering policy encouraging individual employees and teams of employees to become involved in appropriate volunteering activities in Merck communities. To date, close to 400 employees across 26 sites have reported on community volunteer projects that have been undertaken.
  
• The Regional Strategic Grants program is administered by the Merck Office of Corporate Philanthropy. This program is designed to address regional strategic priorities (e.g., key social, health or policy issues of importance to the regions and/or specific countries within regions) across Asia Pacific, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe –Middle East and Africa. It aims to help each region build and strengthen relationships with regional and country-level stakeholders by addressing key social issues of mutual interest and creating shared value. This program, through a competitive, uniform, regional application and selection process, provides support of up to US$2 million annually (allocated across the three regions) to qualified programs.
  
• In late 2009, the Office of Corporate Philanthropy expects to launch a new Health Policy Innovation Grants program to enhance understanding of, and advance research into, practical solutions to critical global health care challenges. Grant funding through this program will be awarded based on a uniform, competitive application process.

2008

• Working with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, we launched the Alliance/Merck Ciencia (Science) Hispanic Scholars Program( PDF*). to improve the ability of Hispanic students to achieve access to higher education and pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. The Merck Company Foundation committed $4 million in funding over five years; The Merck Institute for Science Education will work closely with the Alliance to implement the program.
  
• In April 2008, we created the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes to help reduce health care disparities related to diabetes among minority, low-income and underserved groups in the United States. This initiative officially launched in February 2009.

2007

• Continuing our longstanding support of the Merck MECTIZAN Donation Program, we pledged up to $25 million over eight years as part of an initiative with the World Bank to raise $50 million to close a funding gap for the African Program for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC). This funding will help eliminate river blindness as a public health problem in 28 African countries by enabling APOC to continue to expand community directed treatment programs, thereby strengthening overall health infrastructure in these countries so that they will be self-sufficient by 2015.
  
• We committed $2.8 million to establish two new immunization training centers in Uganda and Zambia and to expand the Foundation's support of two existing centers in Kenya and Mali as part of the Merck Vaccine Network–Africa.

2006

• We committed $13 million to continue support for the UNCF/Merck Science Initiative for another five years.
  
• We extended our existing commitment to the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships in Botswana through 2009 and provided additional funding of $6.5 million.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Merck as the third largest corporate donor in the United States in its 2008 annual charitable giving survey based on Merck's 2008 corporate giving. Annually since 1999, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has produced a ranking, based on charitable giving, of 150 of the largest corporations in the United states (as ranked according to annual revenue in Fortune magazine's Fortune 500). Merck has ranked consistently among the top corporate donors in the United States in this annual ranking over the past several years.

The content on this page was last modified on September 15, 2009.

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