Five key products push Merck & Co sales up 23% to over $40 billion in 2000

Merck & Co has posted a 23% increase in sales to $40.4 billion for 2000,while net income climbed 16% to $6.82 billion or $2.90 per share (+18%). Sales reached $10.57 billion (+29%), helped by healthy growth at the group's Merck-Medco managed care business.

In terms of drug sales, one of the largest earners for the group was Vioxx (rofecoxib), Merck's COX-2 inhibitor for osteoarthritis and acute pain. Vioxx sales reached $2.20 billion (with $700 million coming in the fourth quarter of 2000) and, in the USA, the drug now accounts for 50% of new prescriptions in the COX-2 class, according to the company. The lipid-lowerer Zocor (simvastatin) rose 14% to $1.50 billion for the fourth quarter, despite competition from Pfizer's Lipitor (atorvastatin) and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol (pravastatin). Merck noted that, in the USA, the market for statins continues to expand at about 20% a year, and growth opportunities still remain "because more than half of the people who should be taking cholesterol medicines are still untreated."

Cozaar/Hyzaar going strong