Merck, Schering shareholders back merger

Shareholders at both Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. today overwhelmingly backed the $41.1 billion merger of the two pharmaceutical companies.

At separate meetings, shareholders of Merck and Schering-Plough cast more than 99 percent of their votes for the deal, which will make Merck the world's second-largest drug company, just behind Pfizer Inc.

Owners of Merck stock voted at a morning meeting near company headquarters in Whitehouse Station, N.J. Merck employs about 12,000 people in Montgomery County.

The combination is expected to result in 16,000 lost jobs, or about 15 percent of the two companies' workforce, but Merck chief executive Richard Clark has said he expected minimal reductions in this region, and possibly none at all.

Big drug companies are facing the expiration of billions worth of drug patents in the next few years, pushing some of them into large mergers and massive cost-cutting.

Pfizer Inc. of New York is expected to complete its acquisition of Wyeth later this year. Wyeth, based in Madison N.J., employs several thousand people in Collegeville and Malvern. Pfizer and Wyeth plan to eliminate about 20,000 jobs at the merged company, but they have not yet said where those cuts will occur.

Shareholders of Schering-Plough, based in Kenilworth, N.J., voted to approve the Merck deal at a special meeting in Boston this afternoon.

The two companies still need approval from the Federal Trade Commission and regulators in other countries.

The marriage will unite Merck's asthma and allergy treatment Singulair and cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil with Schering-Plough's allergy spray Nasonex and well-known consumer products including the Coppertone sun care line and Dr. Scholl's foot care items.