Looking back at a successful year 2010
The year 2010 is coming to a close – and we at Merck hope that we and our products were able to contribute that it was a successful one for you as well. So let us take a brief look back at some highlights of these eventful twelve months.
Organic growth
Since July 15th, Merck Chemicals has a new division: “Merck Millipore”. Through the successful acquisition of Millipore, Merck KGaA further extends its competitive position and customer proximity – with a range of more than 40.000 products, Merck Millipore ranks third in the Life Sciences Market. One company that now belongs to the newly created Merck Millipore division, Merck & Cie from Switzerland, reported another great success in September: The drug Beyaz® from Bayer Schering Pharma AG, an oral clivontraceptive that contains Merck & Cie’s premium folate Metafolin®, has been granted US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. This opens a very easy and reliable way to supply folate (an essential vitamine B) for women of childbearing age.
Successful appearances – thanks to innovative products
In 2010, Merck again introduced into the market a number of innovative products that we presented at numerous trade fairs with excellent feedback. For example, at the world’s most important pharma event, CPhI Worldwide 2010 in Paris, our new chemically defined cell culture media took center stage at the Merck booth. Merck’s chemically defined cell culture media are produced precisely according to the customer’s individual formulations and in any volume required. Our directly compressible excipients Parteck® Mg DC, a magnesium salt for hard tablets, and Parteck® ODT for orally disintegrating tablets were also very well received in Paris. Another product highlight in 2010 was Eshmuno® – our new family of ion-exchange resins for highly productive downstream purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAb). First products are already available: the strong cation exchanger resin Eshmuno® S and the anion exchanger resin Eshmuno® Q.
Efficiency and safety for biopharmaceutical production
As a reliable partner for biotech companies, Merck will do everything to make biological production safer and more efficient. In June 2010, 150 biotech specialists from all over Europe had the opportunity to experience first hand the competences and capacities of Merck: We invited the participants of the 9th Biological Production in Frankfurt, Germany to the first “Merck Discovery Tour” including an exclusive visit to our brand-new GMP process solutions plant. Here we produce, among other things, our ultra-pure solutions for efficient Cleaning in Place that our customers can integrate directly into their cleanroom.
Dialogue and partnership
Another successful premiere in Darmstadt was the first “Merck Pharma Forum” in February: More than 100 representatives of notable companies from the pharma and supplier industry met to discuss the topics compliance, sourcing, risk minimization and certification programs for pharmaceutical excipients. The great response to events like these show: With our focus on dialogue and partnership we are on the right track.
In this spirit, we would like to thank you for a good cooperation during the last twelve months and wish you all the best for the upcoming year – see you in 2011!
