Merck achieves targets for 2017
Organic sales growth in all regions
Merck met its targets for 2017 and achieved important strategic successes with the approvals of two new medicines. Sales increased over the previous year whereas EBITDA pre, which was adversely impacted by negative foreign exchange effects, declined slightly.
“2017 was a good year for Merck. We performed well in a challenging environment and met all our targets for the year,” said Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck. “We are staying the course and will continue to purposefully implement our innovation-driven growth strategies for Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials. In addition, we are resolutely working to quickly lower our acquisition-related debt-to-equity ratio,” Oschmann stated further.
In 2017, Merck generated net sales of € 15.3 billion (2016: € 15.0 billion). This increase of 2.0% over the previous year was mainly attributable to the strong organic sales performance of the Healthcare and Life Science business sectors. At Group level, all regions contributed to the organic sales growth of 3.8%. However, the stronger euro resulted in negative foreign exchange effects of -1.5%. Acquisitions and divestments caused Group net sales to decline by -0.3%.
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