Nov 04, 2009 (The Philadelphia Inquirer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX News Network) --

Merck & Co. Inc. completed its planned $41 billion acquisition of Schering-Plough Corp. yesterday after the stock markets closed.

The deal creates the world's second-largest drugmaker, behind Pfizer Inc. Patent expirations on top-selling drugs such as Merck's asthma drug Singulair helped drive the combination.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., employs about 12,000 people in Montgomery County.

Schering-Plough is based in Kenilworth, N.J. The companies will begin operating today as a single firm under the Merck name.

The acquisition is expected to result in about 16,000 job losses globally, about 15 percent of the combined Merck/Schering-Plough workforce.

In March, Merck chief executive Richard Clark, who will head the new company, said he expected a minimal number of those reductions to occur in Montgomery County. The company yesterday declined to comment beyond its press release announcing the close of the deal.

The completion comes after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the deal Thursday. Regulators in Europe and elsewhere, and shareholders of both companies, had already approved it.

The two companies have been jointly selling the cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia for years. Their deal adds allergy drugs Nasonex and Clarinex to Merck's Singulair and its diabetes pill Januvia. It also gives Merck animal- and consumer-health products, and a promising biotech division.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.

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