P & G set to pick up Merck’s Consumer Healthcare Unit

Pharmaceutical and chemicals group Merck have announced they have agreed to sell their Consumer Health business to Proctor & Gamble.
The sale will allow Merck to use the net proceeds ‘primarily to accelerate deleveraging’ and gives its key businesses (healthcare, life sciences and performance materials) extra financial backing. With over 900 products sold in 44 countries, Merck said the business had outperformed the market’s overall growth over three years.
P & G’s CEO David Taylor said he ‘liked the steady broad-based growth’ of the over-the-counter healthcare market.
With the deal to be completed by the end of the year, some of Merck’s 3,300 staff will move with the sale to P & G.