Merck

Headquarters: Darmstadt, Germany

This German multinational took the crown in two categories. Merck has a long history stretching back to the 1660s – making it one of the oldest chemical and pharmaceutical companies in the world. Today, its life science division supplies a broad range of solutions, consumables, and services for discovery, development, manufacturing (both upstream and downstream), and testing and analytics. In the US and Canada, the life science business is known as MilliporeSigma.

Several big announcements were made in 2024. A single-use reactor specifically designed for antibody drug conjugates was launched. On the CDMO side of the business, the company also announced a €70 million expansion of its ADC manufacturing capabilities at its Bioconjugation Center of Excellence facility in St. Louis, Missouri. This investment will triple existing capacity. In October 2024, a €290 million biosafety testing facility was opened in Rockville, Maryland, to meet growing global demand, and in late December it emerged that Merck had signed an agreement to acquire HUB Organoids Holding in the Netherlands. In a statement, Merck said that the promise of organoids contributes to the company’s sustainability, diversity, and inclusion ambitions.