Analyse de l'industrie pharmaceutique et évaluation de la stratégie du laboratoie Merck

The pharmaceutical industry is characterized by a harsh competition between large companies, biotech start-ups and generics, long and risky R&D processes, increasing government regulations and strong purchaser pressures.
merck & Co, Inc. is one of the biggest players in this industry, thanks to its competitive advantages. Indeed, merck benefits from its continuous efforts in the R&D field: its R&D spending increased as much as 75% between 2005 and 2009. Second, the company use of its human resources is a key success factor, in an industry where scientific researchers are paramount and brain drain as well as poaching a plague for the pharmaceuticals leaders. That's the reason why merck insists on offering strong incentives to attract and keep scientists, and develops scholarships granting along with partnerships with colleges and research centers. Finally, merck presents a powerful customer-oriented philosophy, which fosters its brand equity, and which has been very much used these times, especially after the Vioxx scandal.

Nevertheless, as we can notice on the BGC matrix applied to merck's portfolio, the company businesses tend to follow a declining trend. Consequently, despite its leader position in the industry, merck had to realize various strategic moves during the last five years to remain in the game. Indeed, despite its tradition of not getting involved in mergers and acquisitions processes, it acquired various biotech companies in order to gain technological advance and reinforce its position on the biotechnology segment. In addition, by acquiring Schering Plough later this year, merck seems to have put an end to its strategy of internal growth: it is clear that it now resorts to acquisition with a view to becoming a stronger and global healthcare leader.
Such strategic changes are the result of a moving environment: merck is trying to respond to the key future challenges. By joining its forces to Schering Plough's, merck will benefit from a more extended products portfolio, which enables it to compensate for the erosion of the blockbuster model. Furthermore, merck will get a stronger R&D pipeline, which is paramount to react against the loss of patent protection happening these years and the following, and it reinforces its presence in the key future markets, that is to say the high-potential emerging markets.