As a company dedicated to saving and improving lives, we have a special responsibility to help in the fight against COVID-19. We’ve been fully committed to developing an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic since it was first recognized

We wanted to share with you some of the ways that we are engaged. We will also continue providing updates as we all address this pandemic.

Protecting the safety of our employees and their families

We have taken extensive steps to ensure that any sites that are currently open, including our plants and labs around the world, are as safe as possible for our colleagues and to provide additional support to our colleagues who are working at our sites. Our other colleagues are working remotely – and, together, we are all focused on advancing our mission to save and improve lives.

Supporting our customers

To limit the spread of the disease, we have asked our employees to work from home. This situation will be reassessed regularly based on government recommendations.

We have also paused in-person interactions with health care providers and all our field-based employees are working from home. However, we are committed to continuing to support you through various platforms. Such as:

Ensuring that our supply of medicines and vaccines reach our patients and customers

Thanks to our committed colleagues, our manufacturing plants and clinical supply sites remain open around the world and we are taking steps to make sure that continues to be the case. We continue to have normal supply levels for our medicines and vaccines. We remain committed to keeping our stakeholders including regulatory authorities informed of any important updates regarding the supply of our medicines and vaccines.

We continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure quick action in case of potential disruption and will keep you informed should anything change.

Our commitment to patients

Our clinical trials are on-going. Driven by our steadfast commitment to patients, we are making every effort to ensure that patients in affected areas who are enrolled in clinical trials are able to continue their treatment and receive appropriate care and monitoring.

Research Efforts: pursuing multiple pathways

We are seeking to develop enduring solutions that can be deployed globally now and for future outbreaks through multiple treatment and vaccine approaches.

We are pursuing our research efforts for treatment approaches that we believe will give us the opportunity to have a meaningful and direct impact on patients suffering with COVID-19.

Our collaboration with Ridgeback Bio, as well as our planned acquisition of OncoImmune that was announced on November 23, underscore our commitment to developing an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supporting Front Line Workers and our Communities #MerckCanadaGivesBack

We are also actively engaged in a variety of relief efforts to help people and communities around the world, such as contributing financial support to global and local relief organizations.

In Canada, we have identified 4 areas where we can have the most impact.

FRONT LINE HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL

Keeping our health care professionals safe is critical during a pandemic such as this one. As the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) keeps increasing, Merck Canada has donated approximately $100,000 for the purchase of PPEs such as masks. This donation will be managed by Innovative Medicines Canada who will work hand in hand with the Public Health Agency of Canada to ensure appropriate distribution of PPEs across the country where needed.

OUR COMMUNITIES AND VULNERABLE POPULATIONS

Helping our communities has always been important for us. As of today, Merck Canada has donated approximately $100,000 to various charitable organizations across Canada to help support vulnerable populations during this pandemic.

This work is on-going as we continue to consider other possible ways to support our communities.

PATIENT ASSOCIATIONS

We are supporting patient associations through our sponsorship of patient programs to ensure continued care for cancer patients, including support for diagnosis and treatment in a COVID-19 environment in a timely and ethical manner.

EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING

At Merck Canada, employees are encouraged to support their communities as appropriate through volunteer services during work hours. This includes allowing medically trained employees to volunteer their time to aid in our healthcare system where needed. We are extremely proud of the many ways that our employees are helping, either through volunteering services or donations.

We recognize this situation is evolving rapidly. We will be adjusting our plans as needed as new information becomes available and we will keep you informed as necessary.

Global Efforts

We are also supporting patients, health care providers and communities through a range of relief efforts around the World. Merck has contributed or committed more than $30 million to COVID-19 relief efforts thus far. This support has included donations of medicines, personal protective equipment (PPE) donations for health care providers and funding to relief organizations, including the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund in support of the World Health Organization and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundation Emergency Response Fund.