The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and a presence in 66 countries. The group includes around 250 companies; the main company is Merck KGaA in Germany. The company is divided into three business lines: Healthcare, Life Sciences and Electronics. Merck was founded in 1668 and is the world's oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company, as well as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies globally.
Schering-Plough Corporation was an American pharmaceutical company. It was originally the U.S. subsidiary of the German company Schering AG, which was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering. As a result of nationalization, it became an independent company. In 1971, the Schering Corporation merged with Plough, Inc. to form Schering-Plough. On November 4, 2009 Merck & Co. merged with Schering-Plough with the new company taking the name of Merck & Co.
Merck refers primarily to the German Merck family and three companies founded by the family, including:
Schering AG was a research-centered German multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Wedding, Berlin, which operated as an independent company from 1851 to 2006. In 2006, it was bought by Bayer AG and merged to form the Bayer subsidiary Bayer Schering Pharma AG, which was renamed Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals in 2011. Schering was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and had 26,000 employees as of 2004.
Sal. Oppenheim was a German private bank founded in 1789 and headquartered in Cologne, Germany. It provided asset management solutions for wealthy individual clients and institutional investors. In 2009, the bank became a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank. In 2017, Deutsche Bank decided to discontinue the Sal. Oppenheim brand and to fully integrate their business, which was officially completed on 30 June 2018.
The private bank Merck Finck A Quintet Private Bank, founded in 1870, is based in Munich and is also represented nationwide with a total of 10 locations. Since 2011, it has been a subsidiary of the Luxembourg bank KBL European Private Bankers (KBL), which was renamed Quintet Private Bank in January 2020.
Heinrich Emanuel Merck was an apothecary whose descendants are the founders of Merck and Company and Merck KGaA.
The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities of Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
Gustav August Rudolph Crasemann was a Hamburg businessman and parliamentarian.
Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service private and merchant bank headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It is considered the world's oldest merchant bank.
Jacob Benjamin Wegner was a Norwegian business magnate. He was one of the country's leading mining magnates as the director-general and co-owner of Blaafarveværket, and also had significant interests in other mining and timber companies.
Merck & Co., Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Rahway, New Jersey, and is named for Merck Group, founded in Germany in 1668, of which it was once the American arm. The company does business as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, generally ranking in the global top five by revenue.
Johann Hinrich Gossler was a German merchant and banker. He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) and succeeded his father-in-law Johann Berenberg as head of the Berenberg & Gossler company, that was renamed Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. the year following his death. During Gossler's tenure as the company's main partner it became one of the largest merchant houses of Hamburg. Many of his descendants were prominent in Hamburg society, including his grandson, Hamburg's first mayor Hermann Gossler. Some of his descendants were later ennobled as the barons von Berenberg-Gossler. The Gossler Islands in Antarctica are named in honour of his family.
The Berenberg family was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans and Paul Berenberg from Antwerp, who came as Protestant refugees to the city-republic of Hamburg following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and who established what is now Berenberg Bank in Hamburg in 1590. The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and became involved in merchant banking in the 17th century. Having existed continuously since 1590, Berenberg Bank is the world's oldest surviving merchant bank.
H. J. Merck & Co. was one of the largest merchant banks in Hamburg, Germany and existed from 1799 to 1983. Merck & Co. was also involved in shipping, and co-founded the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) with Berenberg Bank.
Andreae & Co. was the first court pharmacy in Hanover and was owned by members of the Andreae family from 1645 to 1803. It was founded in 1639 on Klappenburg by Dr. Joachim Jäger with a ducal privilege from Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The pharmacy quickly came to serve the ducal court and became the official court pharmacy. As Jäger became canonicus at Braunschweig, he sold the pharmacy to Johann Andreae in 1645 with permission from the Duke.
The Gossler family, including the Berenberg-Gossler branch, is a Hanseatic and partially noble banking family from Hamburg.
Friedrich Jacob Merck was a German pharmacist and a member of the Merck family. He was the founder of the world's oldest pharmaceutical company, now known as the Merck Group, which was established in 1668.
