The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German multinational pharmaceutical, chemical and life sciences company headquartered in Darmstadt, with around 50,000 employees in around 70 countries. Merck was founded in 1668 and is the world’s oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company, as well as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Merck operates in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. It has major research and development centres in Darmstadt, Boston, Tokyo and Beijing. Merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine in the 19th century and for a time held a virtual monopoly on cocaine.
Merck was privately owned until going public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 1995, and is listed on the DAX index of Germany’s top companies. The Merck family still controls a majority 70.3% of the company’s shares. The Merck Group includes around 250 companies in 180 countries; the current main parent company of the group, since 1995, is named Merck KGaA, and is itself mainly owned by the former main parent company, E. Merck oHG, which now operates as a holding company.
The American pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. was established as a subsidiary of Merck in 1891, but was nationalized by the United States in 1917, before being privatized again when George W. Merck purchased back the stock in 1919. It is known as MSD (Merck Sharp and Dohme) outside of North America. The original Merck of Darmstadt holds the rights to the name Merck in all countries except the U.S. and Canada, where it is known as EMD (Emanuel Merck, Darmstadt). In 2015 Merck adopted a new uniform brand identity for all its subsidiaries, and the company has stressed its intention to protect the brand of “the real Merck” globally and initiated litigation against its former subsidiary over use of the name.
Contact:
Headquarters: Frankfurter Strasse 250, Darmstadt, 64293, Germany
Fax: +496151722000
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