Who we are > Sustainability > Transparency disclosures

Transparency disclosures

We aspire to be transparent about how we operate to earn the trust and confidence of our customers and other stakeholders.

We proactively provide nonproprietary information about our business

We disclose information through a variety of mechanisms, including our financial disclosures, our annual Impact Report, and participation in voluntary efforts such as CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), as well as through the media and through one-on-one stakeholder discussions. As part of this commitment to increasing transparency, we disclose information in this corporate responsibility report in the following areas: CDP, Clinical Trials, Corporate Political Advocacy and Contributions, Employee Diversity, Grants to Medical, Scientific and Patient Organizations, Payments to Health Care Professionals, Philanthropic Grants and Contributions, and Post-Marketing Requirements.

CDP

Visit CDP

CDP is an independent not-for-profit organization working to drive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and sustainable water use by businesses and cities.

CDP works with investors globally to advance the investment opportunities and reduce the risks posed by climate change by asking almost 6,000 of the world’s largest companies to report on their climate strategies, GHG emissions and energy use in the standardized Investor CDP format. We have been disclosing climate information via the CDP for a number of years, and more recently have participated in both its Water and Supply Chain disclosures.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials investigate potential new treatments

Clinical trial registries help patients and their health care providers learn about and gain access to relevant clinical trials of experimental treatments or preventative agents. They also provide information on trials in progress and the ability to track such trials over the course of development for those who analyze, report or publish the results of clinical trials.

Learn more about our clinical trials:

Since 2007, we have registered at trial initiation all clinical trials in patients in which treatment is assigned that our company sponsors and conducts worldwide on www.ClinicalTrials.gov. We also disclose results from registered clinical trials of marketed products — regardless of outcomes.

Clinical trial results

The clinical study results of our company and Schering-Plough, previously posted via the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Clinical Study Results Database, have been available as of December 2011.

Clinical trial data sharing

We are committed to the PhRMA/EFPIA Principles for Responsible Clinical Trial Data Sharing. Learn more about our policies and perspectives:

Corporate political advocacy and contributions

Policies & positions

Our company is committed to participating constructively and responsibly in the political process. To improve access to information about our advocacy activities, we disclose our costs associated with lobbying in the European Union and the U.S.

Where permitted by law in the U.S., Canada and Australia, the company provides corporate political contributions, primarily to the electoral campaigns of individual candidates.

To improve access to information about our corporate political and Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions in the U.S., our company semiannually posts our contributions, categorized by state, candidate and amount. We post our contributions in Canada and Australia annually. Merck’s U.S. and Global Government Relations teams regularly review and analyze our corporate and Merck PAC political contributions to ensure all contributions made throughout the year are consistent with our political giving guidelines. These teams also provide regular reports to the Office of General Counsel, Office of the Secretary, and Merck Board of Directors.

We disclose a list of industry and trade groups of which we are members and for which our dues are greater than $25,000 and the amount of those dues that are used for political purposes. We encourage all trade associations to which we belong to disclose publicly their political activities as well.

Employee diversity

Diversity & inclusion at Merck

Diversity and inclusion are integrated into our leadership model and are considered an essential leadership skill for all of our employees.

We were one of the first companies in the U.S. to begin disclosing our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data, and we continue to do so annually.

View our EEO-1 data

Our disclosures

Grants to medical, scientific and patient organizations

United States
We believe that providing support through grants or donations to third-party medical, scientific and patient organizations is an important way to advance our mutual objectives to improve health and advance patient care.

We disclose grants of more than $500 provided by the company’s Global Human Health division to U.S. organizations in support of independent, accredited educational programs for health care professionals, as well as grants to patient organizations and other medical education or scientific societies and organizations in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Canada.

We have robust standards and policies in place to ensure that our grants are intended for, and provided in support of, improving patient care, and are not promotional or likely to be perceived as being promotional in nature, or provided to induce or reward prescription of our products. Furthermore, any grant or donation must also be permitted by and aligned with local country laws and regulations.

We update grants to medical, scientific and patient organizations quarterly in the U.S., and annually in ex-U.S. jurisdictions.

The following three principles guide our approach to providing financial support to medical, scientific and patient organizations:

Independence: Our company respects the independence of medical, scientific and patient organizations and refrains from using our financial support to influence the policies of organizations or to promote specific medicines.

Transparency: Our company supports transparency of financial support provided to medical, scientific and patient organizations. We believe this is an important step in building public trust both in our company and in those to whom we provide support. Making our support public also enhances the visibility of our commitment to helping advance health and science.

Compliance with Local Laws: In providing financial support to medical, scientific and patient organizations, we comply with all relevant local laws and regulations.

As part of our commitment to these principles, we regularly review and update our Code of Conduct to reaffirm our mission and commitment to scientific excellence, ethics and integrity. These principles are also reflected in the company’s corporate policies, procedures and guidelines, which all employees are responsible for understanding and applying appropriately.

Outside the United States
Disclosure of grants to patient organizations has been mandatory in Europe since March 2009. However, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, we voluntarily began disclosing financial support to patient organizations in 2008, and in Canada in 2009. In October 2009, in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Canada, our company also began to disclose grants to other third-party organizations such as medical societies and scientific organizations. The information disclosed includes the organizations, the amounts received, the dates of payment and the projects for which the money was used. Disclosures include all donations and charitable contributions, grants, and membership fees to professional societies or other medical or scientific organizations.

Visit our transparency page on MSD.com

Payments to health care professionals

United States
As an early supporter of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, we believe in broad disclosure of financial relationships between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. In October 2009, our company began voluntarily disclosing all payments to U.S.-based health care professionals who speak on behalf of our company about our products and other health care issues.

We engage with health care professionals around the world to conduct company-sponsored clinical studies on the safety and effectiveness of our products. We conduct these studies, in accordance with strict regulatory requirements, with “real world” physicians and their patients in order to learn more about our products and bring new medicines and vaccines to patients who need them. Once a product is approved for marketing, we continue to conduct studies to monitor ongoing safety and effectiveness.

We also engage with health care professionals through our Investigator Studies Program, whose mission is to advance the delivery of quality health care by supporting investigator-initiated original research that will enhance the understanding of disease entities and their treatment. This program is open to all academic and community-based physicians and researchers worldwide who are interested in conducting their own research.

We are committed to the discovery and development of important new drugs and vaccines through collaboration with scientific leaders from academic and scientific organizations around the world. Advice in the form of consulting engagements with external medical and scientific experts results in meaningful scientific exchanges that bring real-world knowledge and perspectives to our company. These critical exchanges contribute to advancing science both at our company and in the broader scientific community, and ultimately help benefit human health.

We also engage physicians as speakers in the U.S. through our company’s Medical Forums, which are designed to deliver balanced medical and scientific information to health care professionals so that patients can have access to the medicines and vaccines they need and use these products correctly. These programs are structured to be consistent with the PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals and are conducted in compliance with FDA regulations to help ensure that our product information is presented in an appropriately balanced manner, with respect to potential benefits and risks.

Search Open Payments Data

Philanthropic grants and contributions

We report philanthropic grants and charitable contributions, including contributions made through the Office of Social Business Innovation, our company’s Foundation, U.S. Global Human Health, and the Merck for Mothers program.

All reports are intended for residents of the U.S. and Canada.

Post-marketing requirements

We recognize the importance of providing transparent information about the status of our marketing and development activities after a product has been approved by regulatory authorities.

This information can help ensure that health care providers and patients remain informed about our products.

To inform the public about post-marketing activities, we will, on a quarterly basis, post information on this website concerning post-marketing requirements (PMRs) for U.S.-marketed products intended for human use. Information will include the nature and status of the PMRs for the life cycle of a marketed product, in accordance with U.S. regulations.

Information will also include reference to clinical, nonclinical or pharmacovigilance studies/trials that have been identified as PMRs. Additional background on post-marketing requirements is available at the FDA website.

U.S. Post-Marketing Requirements Report Final 3Q2024

Headings, column headings & explanations

Registered Trade Name: Trade name registered in the U.S. market

Generic Name: Active ingredient[s] in the drug

NDA/BLA #: New Drug Application or Biologic License Application number

Original Due Date: The date in the original FDA correspondence by which our company has agreed to complete the post-marketing requirement to the FDA

FDA Approved Deferred Due Date: The new date agreed to with FDA by which the commitment must be completed.

Status: The status of the post-marketing requirement at the last quarterly update (Pending, Ongoing, Delayed, Terminated, Submitted, Fulfilled and Released—see definitions below)

Explanation of Status: An explanation is provided where appropriate. Any revisions to due date agreed upon with the FDA are reflected here

PMR #: Post-Marketing Requirements number assigned to commitment by the FDA

PMR Description: The description of the post-marketing requirement

Below are definitions of the status used for each final report submission. There may be differences between the status of the information posted to this website and that on the FDA Post-Marketing Commitments website, due primarily to the differences in timing of the updates and the fact that the Company only posts the status of the final report submission and not interim milestone statuses (such as final protocol, study/trial completion, etc.). The due date reflected is the original due date agreed upon with FDA.

Any revisions to due date agreed upon with the FDA are reflected in the Explanation of Status.

Pending: Commitment activity has not yet started.

Ongoing: Activity for the Commitment has begun. The commitment status should be changed from “Pending” to “Ongoing” when the first subject/patient is screened.

Delayed: The status is changed to “Delayed” once the original due date has passed or the due dates of any approved extensions have passed.

Terminated: The applicant ended the study before completion and has not yet submitted a final study report to the FDA.

Submitted: The applicant has concluded or terminated the study and has submitted a final study report to the FDA, but the FDA has not yet notified the applicant in writing that the study commitment has been fulfilled or that the commitment has been released.

Fulfilled: The applicant has submitted the final study report for the commitment, and upon review of the final study report, the FDA is satisfied that the applicant has met the terms of the commitment.

Released: The FDA has informed the applicant that it has been released from its obligation to conduct the post-marketing study because the study is either no longer feasible or would no longer provide useful information.

Pricing practices in the U.S.

As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency about our business operations, and to help people better understand our pricing practices in the U.S., in 2017 we began disclosing information about the price of medicines across our portfolio in the U.S.

This information includes changes in average annual list and net prices across our product portfolio since 2010. The disclosure also includes the average discount rate across our portfolio each year.

These disclosures don’t tell the complete story about how we are responding to concerns about access and affordability. We have a long history of discovering medicines and vaccines and making them accessible and affordable to people who need them. Additional information about our activities can be found in our Impact Report. We also recognize that more needs to be done, and we welcome opportunities to work with stakeholders to find long-term solutions.

Pricing Transparency Report (2010-2023) (Posted February 2024)