Merck 2014 Annual Report Download - page 68

63GROUP MANAGEMENT REPORT → FUNDAMENTAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE GROUP → Corporate Responsibility
authors who have made a distinctive contribution to the cultural
exchange between Germany and India. In April2014, the award
went to Professor Pramod Talgeri, Vice-Chancellor of the India
International Multiversity.
In October2014, the company and the Goethe-Institut Tokyo
presented the first-ever Merck Kakehashi Literature Prize of Merck
KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Worth a total of €20,000, this award
is granted to contemporary works by German authors that are
made accessible to a wider readership in Japan. The prize went to
German author Arno Schmidt for his book “Seelandschaft mit
Pocahontas” (Lake Scenery with Pocahontas) and to the book’s
Japanese translator, Jun Wada.
Education
We view education as a key component of culture – and vice versa .
Education can help us understand culture. But culture can also
build a bridge to education; it can stimulate curiosity and nurture
creativity. We therefore support educational projects at many of
our sites, by granting scholarships for instance, or sponsoring
specific classes. In order to promote young scientists, for example,
the Group has been organizing the renowned annual “Jugend
forscht” competition for the German federal state of Hesse every
year since 1996.
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNANCE
Responsible business practices form the foundation of our operat-
ing business. We minimize ethical, economic and legal risks so as
to secure the Group's license to operate. We take responsibility for
our products, our employees, the environment and the community.
Responsibility for our products
The safety of our products is at the core of our corporate respon-
sibility. As long as used properly, our products should pose no risk
to customers or the environment, nor should our pharmaceuticals
have a negative benefit-risk evaluation. We therefore examine
safety across the entire life cycle of our products and continuously
take steps to minimize risks. We make our products safer to use by
providing patients and customers with extensive information ma-
terial so that they can use the products in a responsible, safe and
proper manner.
Through our Pharma Code for Conducting Pharmaceutical
Business and Pharmaceutical Operations, we set standards for re-
sponsible marketing activities in order to ensure that patients and
health care professionals have access to relevant information and
that patients receive effective treatment.
(1) Safety of chemical products
There are numerous regulations intended to ensure that chemicals
pose no risk to humans or the environment. Compliance with these
regulatory requirements is an important part of our work. Through
our Group-wide Product Safety Chemicals policy, we have intro-
duced global processes for defining, steering and implementing
product safety, and have established the corresponding manage-
ment structures. The company incorporates all relevant national
and international chemical regulations into its policies and regu-
lations and adheres to them. This includes for instance the EU
chemicals regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisa-
tion and Restriction of Chemicals) and CLP (Classificat
ion, Label-
ling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures, EU GHS).
Further-
more, we are committed to transparency. For instance, in line with
the Global Product Strategy, an international initiative of the
chemical industry, we provide our customers with product safety
summaries for hazardous materials.
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, has successfully completed
the second phase of REACH implementation. All substances we
produce or import in quantities ranging from 100 to 1,000 metric
tons per year – 70 different substances in total – were successfully
registered with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) by June1,
2013. We are currently in phase three, during which we are work-
ing to register all substances produced or imported in quantities
between one and 100 metric tons per year by mid-2018. We are
fully on schedule with our activities.
(2) Safety of drugs
In everything we do, our number-one priority is patient safety.
Ultimate responsibility for drug safety at the Biopharmaceuticals
business is borne by our Medical Safety and Ethics Board (MSEB),
which is chaired by our Global Chief Medical Officer. The Bio-
pharmaceuticals business’ Global Drug Safety unit is responsible
for continuously and systematically monitoring the safety of our
drugs (pharmacovigilance). This unit processes safety information
from various sources such as clinical trials, adverse reaction re-
ports and scientific literature in order to provide patients with
risk-benefit evaluations during the entire life cycle of a drug.
(3) Quality of products
Our goal is to provide customers and patients with high-quality
brand-name products. Through our quality vision, “Quality is
embedded in everything we do!” we remind our employees of their
responsibility – across all divisions, all Group functions and all
levels of the company.