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EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Raymond Gilmartin, 58, Chairman, Pres, CEO
Judy Lewent, 50 Sr. VP and CFO
Mary McDonald, 54 Sr. VP and Gen. Counsel
Celia Colbert, 42 VP, Sec. and Assistant Gen. Counsel
Caroline Dorsa, 39 VP and Treasurer
Latest Financial Overview (marketguide.com)
Market capitalization: $145B
1999 revenues: $32.7B, up $5.8B over 1998 revenues
Steady double-digit growth of sales, earnings per share, and dividend
(12-20%)
Merck and Co. is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with
a broad range of therapeutic and preventive medicine products for both
human and animal health. Merck develops, discovers, produces, and markets
health and products for sale to drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals,
clinics, government agencies, and managed healthcare providers. Over the
past few years, Merck released 14 new medicines. A sampling of human health
products include diverse agents as the platelet aggregation inhibitor
Aggrastat for treatment of acute coronary syndrome, Singulair for treatment
of asthma, Propecia for male pattern baldness, the hepatitis B vaccine
Comvax, Pepcid AC for heartburn relief, and Fosamax for treatment of post-menopausal
osteoporosis.
Like most large pharmaceutical companies, drug discovery at Merck has
traditionally centered around the screening of chemical libraries. However,
the company has significantly diversified its research approach by incorporating
the use of combinatorial libraries, rational drug design, robotics, and
genomics. Merck's R+D budget of $1.8B accounts for 5% of all pharmaceutical
research spending worldwide. This strong commitment to basic research
coupled with more than 5000 scientists (out of a total of 57,000 employees
worldwide) makes Merck a clear leader in pharmaceutical research. Link
to Merck publications 1995-1998: http://www.merck.com/mrl/staffpub
Merck's main competitors include other large pharmaceutical firms such
as Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY),
Smithkline Beecham (NYSE:SBH), Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE:PFE), and Glaxo Wellcome,
PLC (NYSE:GLX) {finance.yahoo.com}.
Merck's stock price has risen steadily over the last five years. The stock
split 2-for-1 in February 1999.
Merck is 55% owned institutionally and only 1% by insiders.
CONCLUSION
Though Merck is one of the world's oldest, largest, and most successful
pharmaceutical firms with double digit growth rates, its shear size may
limit its growth potential due to higher costs. However, with a large
number of successful products already on the market, a strong pool of
scientific talent, and an investment in genomics research, Merck will
likely continue to be a leader in the industry.
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