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Global
CAREERS

Access to Health

Our low- and middle-income country access strategy enables more patients sustainable access to our healthcare products and innovations by addressing local unmet medical needs.

Why we’re so passionate about improving access

At least half of the world’s population lack access to essential health services and 100 million people are pushed to poverty due to health expenses.

Underserved populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face an uphill battle as their health systems are still evolving. At Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany we are committed to addressing unmet global health needs by leveraging our core competencies, expertise, and experience throughout the global health community.

Together with our partners we’re focusing on creating meaningful patient impact. While this takes time, we remain focused on the cause.

Our Goal

Our goal is to develop and deliver transformative specialty medicines to patients with high unmet needs in underserved populations. We’re focused on how we can make a real difference for these patients, broadening the number of treatment options available and improving access.

To increase the availability, accessibility and affordability of our medicines for underserved patient populations in LMICs, we have adopted a systematic approach known as the Systematic Health Access and Patient Enablement (SHAPE) program.​

In 2024, we reached around 65 million patients with our healthcare portfolio in LMICs. We will not stop there: boosted by SHAPE program, our goal is to create an even bigger impact by enabling access to our healthcare portfolio of medicines to 80 million LMIC patients a year by 2030.

Our strategy: going deeper, wider, faster

We’re committed to achieving our goal in LMICs by 2030 by going deeper, wider and faster to enable access:​

Going deeper through equitable pricing and health system strengthening, allowing us to use a holistic approach to reach more underserved patients in LMICs.​

Going wider with our innovative portfolio by increasing availability of our existing innovative products in LMICs through registration in more countries, particularly high burden LMICs.​

Going faster with our launches, to maximize and accelerate the availability of future innovative products in LMICs.

Our strategy is integrated across the health value chain. There is a growing consensus in the global health community and within the pharmaceutical industry that sustainable access requires an integrated approach across the health value chain to deliver complete solutions unhindered by bottlenecks.

“I believe that everyone – no matter where they live – should have access to the best healthcare possible.  Our commitment to patients drive us to go deeper, wider, and faster for access in low- and middle-income countries.”

Hong Chow
Head of China & International Healthcare

Examples of Our commitment to improving access

  • Early detection of cancer

    Discover how our partnership helped reach 4.6 million people to improve awareness about the importance of early detection.

    Learn more

  • Thyroid disorders

    Learn how our partnership with the Vietnamese Ministry of Health increased diagnosis and early treatment of thyroid disease.

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  • India fights back

    Find out how we partnered with the Indian employees’ state insurance company and India Railways to improve diagnosis and treatment.

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  • ACCESS TO MEDICINE INDEX

    Our 7th position shows continuous commitment to improving equitable and sustainable access to high quality solutions for all.

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  • ACCESS TO HEALTH PITCH

    We launched a Pitch Competition to find and accelerate solutions that address health systems gaps in LMICs.

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  • Sustainable supply chains

    We strengthen access to medicines in Low- and middle-income countries by enhancing health supply chains.

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