Merck has a long history of both in-house research and external research partnerships in infectious disease areas, with a focus on innovation to address diseases of the developing world. We continue to seek ways in which we can contribute expertise and resources to these disease areas.

In formulating and refining our R&D approach, we engage with stakeholders such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Health Organization, PATH, the GAVI Alliance, the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria to better understand research priorities of countries worldwide. For example, careful assessment of rotavirus disease burdens with global experts helped inform both the design of our pentavalent rotavirus vaccine, ROTATEQ^® (rotavirus vaccine, live, oral pentavalent), and focus our clinical research efforts, including trials for the vaccine in Africa and Asia.

We apply our R&D expertise and technology to identify potential treatments for infectious diseases in resource-poor settings that current medicines and vaccines do not adequately cover, especially bacterial diseases in the developing world such as pneumococcus, and viral diseases, including HIV and dengue virus. We are also involved in a number of product development partnerships and research collaborations through which we have licensed compounds and donated products for further investigation to partners with specialized expertise.

In addition, Merck was a founding member of the Partnership for Disease Control Initiatives, a coalition of pharmaceutical companies and nongovernmental organization partners engaged in specific disease control or elimination programs for neglected tropical diseases.

Globally, we recognize that our access strategy and research focus play an important role in recruiting and attracting employees, including some of the world's leading scientists, who want to know that the fruits of their discoveries will be available to patients worldwide. This is also an increasingly important incentive for potential external research alliances.