Merck, a leading science and technology company, returned to profitable growth in 2024 and delivered on its guidance for the year. A strong performance of Healthcare, a rebound in Life Science and profitable growth in Electronics contributed to this. During the year, Merck also strategically sharpened its portfolio’s focus on future growth areas. After a strong fourth quarter 2024, the company is looking toward 2025 with confidence and expects continued profitable growth.

"Merck is back on a growth path with all three businesses. The challenges of recent years have been taken as an opportunity to strengthen our supply chains and invest in Europe, the United States and Asia. In 2025, we will continue to deliver profitable growth across our company. With our innovation-driven portfolio, we are ideally positioned to benefit from global macro trends such as complex biologics, novel modalities, and semiconductors for the AI era," said Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck.

During the course of the year, Merck returned to profitable growth, with a strong fourth quarter 2024. Group net sales rose 3.8% organically year-on-year in the final quarter of 2024, while EBITDA pre saw an organic increase of 19.7%. Healthcare delivered organic EBITDA pre growth of 34.2%. Life Science and Electronics grew organically by 16.0% and 14.9% respectively.

For the full year, Merck delivered net sales of € 21.2 billion, an organic increase of 2.0%. Strong sales across all Healthcare franchises and in the Semiconductor Materials business played a key role in this. Life Science resumed growth during the second half of the year.

Group EBITDA pre reached € 6.1 billion in 2024, an organic increase of 6.9%. The increase in sales, temporarily reduced research and development expenses in Healthcare, and strict cost discipline positively impacted this achievement. The EBITDA pre margin was 28.7%, up 0.7 percentage points from the previous year. Importantly, operating cash flow grew by 21.2% to € 4.6 billion.

For 2025, Merck anticipates net sales between € 21.5 billion and € 22.9 billion and an EBITDA pre of € 6.1 billion to € 6.6 billion. This corresponds to an organic sales growth of 3% to 6% and an organic EBITDA pre growth of 3% to 8%.