Merck Medco Merger Essay

The utilization of prescription drugs has increased across all age groups in the US, with 50% of Americans taking at least one prescription drug (Rice & Unruh, 2016). This can be attributed to physician-induced demand, substitution of pharmaceuticals for other medical regimens, commercialization of the products, increase in the aging population and drug insurance coverage, and also the increase in chronic conditions. Lathan discusses the startling fact that the rate increase of prescription drugs purchased was considerably higher in contrast to the US population growth - 71% and 9% respectively (Rice & Unruh, 2016, p. 264).

During this time the first DTC print advertisement for Merck an “antipneumococcal vaccine, Pneumovax(pneumococcal vaccine polyvalent) was printed in Reader’s Digest (Ventola).” That created a chain effect and shortly later “Boots Pharmaceuticals ran the first DTC broadcast advertisement, which promoted the lower price of its prescription brand of ibuprofen (Rufen), compared with Motrin (Ventola).” Today, the US pharmaceutical industry spends $3.1 billion on advertising prescription drugs directly to consumers.

In February of this year, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma announced that it would no longer be marketing its painkillers to doctors. The company alerted its employees that it will get rid of half of its sales force and send a letter to doctors this week notifying them that salespeople will no longer be going to clinics to market their opioid products. The opioid crisis began with the release of

From a strategic perspective, in order to address its organizational needs, EMC stands a better chance if anchored to a larger, more financially and structurally sound medical entity through the option of a merger. Benefits would include gaining increased bargaining power, the improved ability to retain its best and brightest, a “longer reach” in attracting quality personnel from all around the state or the country at large and a better position from which to compete for customers.

Historically speaking, according to Narconon (2015), the issue of prescription drug abuse began in the 1800’s when consumers could self-prescribe medications such as cocaine and morphine. In the 1900’s, the Pure Food and Drug and Harrison Narcotic Tax acts were put into place as measures to control the sale and distribution of these substances (Narconon International, 2015). Today, the prescription drug problem continues to be a growing issue that has many consequences in our society.

People all over the world, continue to be tendered prescription medication, which in many cases further complicate health issues with its myriad of side effects. In fact, statistics have shown that approximately 100,000 people around the world die as a result of prescription drugs annually (Smith, 2012). On the contrary, according

A merger is a partial or total combination of two separate business firms and forming of a new one. There are predominantly two kinds of mergers: partial and complete. Partial merger usually involves the combination of joint ventures and inter-corporate stock purchases. Complete mergers are results in blending of identities and the creation of a single succeeding firm. (Hicks, 2012, p 491). Mergers in the healthcare sector, particularly horizontal hospital mergers wherein two or more hospitals merge into a single corporation, are increasing both in frequency and importance. (Gaughan, 2002). This paper is an attempt to study the impact of the merger of two competing healthcare organization and will also attempt to propose appropriate

Current Industry. The retail drug industry’s 2010 combined annual revenue was $277 billion, according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (Drug Store Industry…, 2011, par. 4).The big players in this industry are CVS Caremark, Corp. Walgreen Co., and Rite-Aid, Corp with Wal-Mart and Target developing more of a presence in recent years. According to the article, the drug store industry is very concentrated with the 50 largest companies generating about 70 percent of the industries revenue (Drug Store Industry…, 2011, par. 4). The industry had grown substantially in the last 50 years and will continue to innovate and develop well into the near future.

By 2006 there were only three major health care distributors, Cardinal, Amerisource, and McKesson, all offering the same products and services (Pearce, 2011). But, Cardinal stood far apart from its competition because a larger percentage of their overall operating income came from non-distribution activities. Their portfolio was diversified into distributing pharmaceuticals, packaging them, providing devices to hospitals that automate dispensing of drugs through their Pyxis subsidiary and providing pharmacy services through Medicine Shoppe (Pearce, 2011).

CVS Caremark has continued to flourish since the merger nearly seven years ago. Today, CVS Caremark is the leading pharmacy healthcare provider in the United States. Leading the market in mail order pharmacy, retail pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, and retail medical clinics, has allowed CVS Caremark to gain and hold a major portion of the pharmaceutical market share. According to CVS Caremark’s website, this translates into the corporation

Merck has initiated towards combining functional departments with a core cross-functional structure that focused on strategies and implementation. For instance, Ray Gilmartin established the Worldwide Business Strategy Teams (WBST) in 1995. The WBST, which consisted of 12 or 15 members from the US Human Health, marketing and MRL’s internal group, focused on managing, improving efforts and coordinating therapeutic franchises worldwide. Cross-functional groups can promote resources for category drugs, decide if marketable drug be evaluated in Phase V studies, look at possible impact sales and push for initiatives. If cross-functional groups are designed and perform correctly, then they will be

Its product related diversification strategy, through series of successful acquisitions, has made the company the biggest player in the US Health care industry. Diversifying the company into industries with high growth rates and potential profitability enabled the company to outperform its competitors who depends mostly only one product division.

Since its humble beginning as a small drugstore, Merck has placed a large amount of importance on improving the health and well-being of its customers. As drug patents expire and genetic forms of their top products become available, Merck’s strategy is to do the unexpected; instead of raising the price of their older products in favor of patent protected new drugs, Merck focuses on reducing their cost in order to better compete with their generic counterparts. Additionally, Merck’s plan for growth now encompasses a much more aggressive pursuit of new drugs in their pipeline through extensive research. Merck became the second largest health care company in the world after the merger with Schering-Plough in 2009 and has

In the last several years, Merck’s individual R &D department has not been able to keep pace with declining revenues from existing products. It is only through Mergers and Acquisitions that Merck has supplemented this income.

Pfizer is known as one of the first and one of the world’s largest Pharmaceutical company that was establish in 1849. It was founded by two cousins called Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart in New York City. Pfizer was as a manufacturer for fine chemicals but because of the discovery that was made in 1950 which made the company the path towards becoming the research-based pharmaceutical that it is update. The product that was first produced was the palatable form of sautonin which was used to treat intestinal worm. The Headquarters of Pfizer is located in New York City, with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, which is nowadays the top multinational corporation that is sold all over the world. It is ranked as the second in the US and Japan market, and Novartis in first place and Roche in third place. The Pfizer Inc. is consisted with a trademark that is called PFIZER. Because of Pfizer’s strategies, Pfizer