Merck still driven by ‘Big Three’

Merck KGaA has revealed at its latest Capital Markets Day that it will continue to focus on its ‘Big Three’ businesses of Process Solutions and Life Science Services, new products in Healthcare and the Semiconductor Solutions arm.

By 2025, these are expected to generate about 80% of targeted sales growth, and more than 50% of total sales. The company remains on track to achieve its mid-term growth target of €25 billion that year and expects to increase sales organically by at least 6%/year on average, about €1 billion/year.

“The current turbulent environment continues to be a stress test for our business model and strategy, said CEO and executive board chair Belén Garijo (pictured). “I can say with confidence that our highly resilient business sectors are the foundation for our bold plans to accelerate efficient growth and seize organic and inorganic opportunities.”

Growth will be achieved by a mixture of targeted acquisitions and organic growth, to which end the company is making multiple ongoing investments in capacity and capabilities. It also confirmed its mid-term forecast for the business organic growth of its business sectors:

* 7-10%/year for Life Science, “driven by the strong development of the core business” and thus ignoring any further COVID-driven growth

* ‘Mid single-digit’ growth for Healthcare, the pharma business, which has several new pipeline medicines and potential market launches, for therapies including multiple sclerosis, and head and neck cancer)

* 3-6%/year for Electronics “driven by the strong above market performance of Semiconductor Solutions and Merck’s comprehensive portfolio in this field”