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Partnership helps football fans stay on top of their cholesterol “stats”: The media flocked around football’s famous quarterback Joe Montana, center, and heart disease survivor Coach Bill Parcells in a press conference held in Tampa, Fla., in January to award Brian Griese (not pictured), third-year quarterback for the Denver Broncos, the “All-Heart Performance of the Year Award.” The award was part of the NFL Cholesterol Screen Team, a program initiated by the NFL and the American College of Cardiology in partnership with Merck. The Team was created to educate football fans about the dangers of high cholesterol and provide information they need to talk with their doctor about cholesterol.     Our drivers of growth     The financial results support this marketing approach. The Company’s worldwide sales rose 23 percent to $40.4 billion in 2000. The five medicines that drive our growth – Vioxx, Zocor, Cozaar/Hyzaar, Fosamax and Singulair – accounted for 57 percent of our entire human health sales in 2000 and, for the last quarter of the year, accounted for 61 percent.     To handle an increasingly challenging marketplace and the rapid rise in the number of products we market, Merck is increasingly using new Internet technology while expanding its medical education initiatives. Over the next year, we will add 1,500 new sales representatives to our U.S. sales force alone. The rapid addition of new people creates its own challenge. New sales representatives must be trained quickly and efficiently in a standardized system that is translatable from country to country. Our marketing and sales teams also need to have greater in-depth knowledge of their markets than ever before.     Perhaps the most notable example of the marketing excellence achieved by our organization is the COX-2 inhibitor for osteoarthritis and acute pain we launched 20 months ago. Vioxx is a superb product of the Merck Research Laboratories. Although it entered the U.S. market about six months after its major competitor, Vioxx has already caught its competitor in the U.S. market and surpassed it in several others. Vioxx is the most successful launch in Merck history, with worldwide sales surpassing the $2 billion mark in only 20 months. Fosamax Once Weekly – A breakthrough in convenience: When Luz Olmos’ physician diagnosed her as suffering from postmenopausal osteoporosis, the 59-year-old native of Mexico City was happy her doctor chose Fosamax Once Weekly, “because the new formulation makes it easier than ever to get the benefits of Fosamax.” Similar acceptance has sent sales of Fosamax Once Weekly climbing.     Our evidence-based approach to marketing is helping to forge even stronger links between our marketers and scientists. Better understanding between the two helps during both the development phases of drugs and their post-launch periods. The purpose of the post-marketing trials is to establish additional uses for drugs already on the market. Such trials are underway to broaden markets for each of our five key drivers. (See page 6 for information on studies to support new indications.)     Our marketing teams are expanding the potential of the Internet to facilitate business-to-business and customer service transactions – and to increase Merck’s “connectedness” to physicians, clients and consumers. Included are a number of pilot projects based on Web technology that range from e-detailing to physicians to equipping doctors’ waiting rooms with kiosks where patients can access and print medical information.     Each of the five medicines profiled here is an outstanding example of how our research and marketing teams work together to develop and market medicines that use novel mechanisms of action. These medicines are potent, highly specific, generally well tolerated, and are administered once a day and, therefore, are convenient for patients to use. Zocor, Merck’s cholesterol-modifying medicine, is showing continued strong growth, based on the product’s demonstrated ability to act favorably on all major lipid parameters. In addition, Zocor has benefited from an increased interest in the scientific community about the role that HDL plays in protecting against cardiovascular events. Worldwide sales reached almost $5.3 billion in 2000, up 17 percent over 1999. Click here for more.  Vioxx, a once-a-day medicine, is the only COX-2 inhibitor indicated in the United States both for osteoarthritis and acute pain. Since its extraordinarily successful 1999 launch, Vioxx has become the world’s fastest-growing branded prescription arthritis medicine, and it is already Merck’s second-largest-selling medicine. In the United States, Vioxx now accounts for approximately 50 percent of new prescriptions in the COX-2 class, despite being second to market in this class in the United States. Vioxx achieved about $2.2 billion in sales for the full year 2000. Click here for more.  Singulair offers asthma relief: Nur Hazirah Hussain, 11, right, enjoys playing outside near her home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but only since she started taking our anti-asthma drug Singulair. Says her mother, Roslizawati Md Ali: “Nur’s regular asthma attacks have all but disappeared since she started taking this medicine. Cozaar and Hyzaar maintain strong leadership in a class of highly effective, well-tolerated, easy-to-take high blood pressure medicines called angiotensin II antagonists (AIIAs), as reflected in $1.7 billion in sales for 2000, a 24 percent increase over 1999. Cozaar and Hyzaar have been prescribed for more than 10 million patients.  Click here for more.  Fosamax, the leading nonhormonal product worldwide for the treatment and prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis, continues to outperform the competition because it is the only osteoporosis medicine consistently proven to reduce the incidence of fractures of the hip as well as the spine. Sales totaled almost $1.3 billion in 2000, up 22 percent over 1999.     Merck continues to strengthen the therapeutic advantages of Fosamax. Regulatory approvals for Fosamax Once Weekly, the first and only oral once-weekly treatment for postmenopausal osteoporosis, continue to be pursued in all parts of the world. Click here for more.  Singulair, Merck’s once-a-day leukotriene antagonist, is one of the top-selling asthma controllers worldwide. Sales in 2000 were $860 million, up 72 percent compared to 1999. Singulair is not a steroid, and it has a chewable formulation that can be used in children as young as age 2. These advantages have enabled Singulair to approach market leadership in the United States. Click here for more.  Back to top

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