Merck Announces Collaboration to Improve Maternal Health through Expanded Access to Family Planning

Merck

, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that they will work together to expand access to family planning, a critical step in improving the health of women around the world. Merck intends to pledge up to $25 million over eight years as part of Merck for Mothers – the company's 10-year initiative to reduce maternal mortality around the world. This pledge will be matched by the Gates Foundation as part of its commitment to family planning. These contributions will advance efforts to help reach United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for a 75 percent reduction in maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health by 2015. The announcement, made today at the London Summit on Family Planning, is part of a new, coordinated effort to ensure that voluntary family planning services reach an additional 120 million women and girls in the world's poorest countries by 2020. More than 150 leaders from donor and developing countries, international agencies, civil society, foundations and the private sector also pledged their support to improving access to family planning information, services and supplies.