Red tape, politics - Anonymous employee Merck Employee Review

2.0
Aug 5, 2010
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good work life balance, slightly above average salary package in Singapore, below average salary package compared to the pharma industry.

Cons

Lots of red tape, lots of politics, many of the directors from different departments recruit ex staffs from their previous employment and that resulted in favortism. This is like a kingdom. If you dun belong to that family, u will never be promoted. In my department there will always be people backstabbing you, looking over your shoulders to catch your mistakes and report that upwards. If you just want a 9-5 job and can be very neutral to such politics, have a very cant be bothered attitude over years, it's an ok employment to work for. I have worked with their Quality organisation before and I find them very political as well. Everytime they counter attack with an issue, they are always talking about standard operating procedures. No professionalism. Other than some technical skills which I have acquired, I felt i have wasted my life at schering plough.

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5.0
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Pros

Excellent company to work with.

Cons

No cons encountered so far

4.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
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Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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