January 31, 2012 - Merck Animal Health today announced that it intends to centralize most of its commercial, marketing and corporate headquarter functions at its Merck Campus in Summit, New Jersey.
The company, known as MSD Animal Health outside the U.S. and Canada, is currently headquartered in the Netherlands.
The plan is part of the business's worldwide strategic plan and blueprint for significant growth, the company said in a release. This plan follows an announcement last March that the animal health business remains a core part of Merck, its renaming to Merck Animal Health, and an extensive evaluation of the business and its strategy including its geographical footprint.
"Merck Animal Health is one of the largest and most profitable animal health businesses in the world and well positioned in a number of fast growing segments within the global animal health market. We believe that we can operate more effectively and efficiently with the centralization of our headquarter functions in the U.S.," Merck president Rick De Luca stated.
"This will lead to a more integrated leadership team, and strengthen the team cohesion required to operate at the highest level globally. It will also place us in the important U.S. market and brings us closer to our parent company to align in strategy and leverage our shared rich resources," he added.
The move is expected to have an impact on positions at the company's site in Boxmeer, in the Netherlands, where around 65 redundancies are expected. The company stresses, however, that Boxmeer will remain the centre for biological R&D and manufacturing, and will continue to employ approximately 1,700 staff.
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