procter

At the time of George W. Merck’s death in 1957, company sales had surpassed $one hundred million annually. Despite the fact that Albert W. Merck, a direct descendant of Friedrich Jacob Merck, continued to sit on the board of directors into the 1980s, the office of chief executive was under no circumstances again held by a Merck family member. Regardless of the pioneering efforts and study achievement under George W. Merck’s leadership, the company struggled in the course of the postwar years. There were no promising new drugs to speak of, and there was intense competition from foreign corporations underselling...