Merck KGaA tempers 2023 sales expectations after underwhelming third-quarter performance

Mer­ck KGaA cau­tioned that its full-year prof­it would like­ly come in at the low end of its tar­get range af­ter a sig­nif­i­cant drop in de­mand for its life sci­ence prod­ucts in the third quar­ter de­spite it be­ing par­tial­ly off­set by buoy­ant health­care sales.

The Ger­man con­glom­er­ate’s to­tal Q3 sales dropped 4.1% from the same time last year to €5.2 bil­lion ($5.56 bil­lion). This was part­ly due to a 13% de­cline in life sci­ence sales com­pared to last year due to de­creas­ing pan­dem­ic-re­lat­ed de­mand, de­stock­ing in its process so­lu­tions unit and a soft­er mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment in Chi­na, CEO Belén Gar­i­jo said on an earn­ings call with in­vestors.

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