A rebranding and a new CEO for Merck

Pharmaceutical company Merck has announced a relaunch of its brand identity in order to reflect its transformation into a global science and technology company.

Outside the United States and Canada, the company will now operate uniformly under the name Merck; in Australia, Merck Serono will become Merck. The change will be accompanied by a new company logo and brand design.

“Merck has fundamentally changed over the past 10 years,” said Karl-Ludwig Kley, the current chairman of the executive board and CEO of Merck. “We have developed from a classic supplier of pharmaceuticals and chemicals into a global technology company. With our unique combination of highly specialised biopharmaceutical, life science and materials businesses, we are in a position today to offer solutions to support global megatrends such as health and digitisation. We want to be recognisable and remain visible as Merck worldwide to strengthen our well-known brand name.”

With the introduction of the new brand design, the previously independent divisional brands Merck Serono and Merck Millipore will be eliminated. In the future, Merck Serono will operate as the biopharmaceutical business and Merck Millipore as the life science business of Merck. Product brands, such as the pharmaceutical product range or MilliQ, will not be affected by this change.

Merck holds the rights to the Merck name and brand globally. The only exceptions are in the United States and Canada. The company will therefore continue to operate in these two countries as EMD Serono in the biopharmaceutical business, as EMD Performance Materials in the high-tech materials business and as EMD Millipore in the life science business up until the planned acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich has been completed.

Merck has also announced that Kley will retire from his position as chairman and CEO at the end of the annual general meeting on 29 April 2016, after nine years in the role. He will be replaced by Stefan Oschmann, who has been a member of the executive board since 2011.

Oschmann was initially in charge of Merck’s pharma business before being appointed as deputy chairman of the executive board and deputy CEO at the beginning of 2015. Prior to joining Merck, he worked for more than 20 years for US pharma company MSD Merck Sharp & Dohme.

“Under the leadership of Karl-Ludwig Kley, Merck has gone through the biggest transformation in its almost 350-year history,” said Johannes Baillou, chairman of the board of partners of E Merck KG. “This entailed building and expanding no fewer than three strong global businesses that are able to provide groundbreaking solutions for patients and customers and secure growth and affluence for our 40,000 employees. We want to express our deep gratitude and respect for his achievements.

“We’re equally happy to have found a successor in Stefan Oschmann early on, whose strategic foresight and strong leadership have turned Merck into a respected player in the pharma industry again. We’re convinced that he will take the right steps to position Merck in a way that will allow the company to continue to actively shape an environment that has been experiencing fundamental scientific and digital changes.”