Merck Kgaa (MKGAF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Merck Investor and Analyst Conference call on Q2 2026. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. I am now handing over to Florian Schraeder, Head of Investor Relations, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much Heidi. Good afternoon, good morning everyone and welcome to our Q2 26 results call. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Florian Schraeder and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Merck. In our Q2 call today, Kai Beckmann, Group CEO, will begin with sharing an update on first steps since we announced our new strategic direction in May. Kai will then provide a brief overview of our business performance and key developments in the second quarter as part of his executive summary. Helene von Roeder, Group CFO, will guide you through the detailed financial overview. Before we move into the Q&A session, where we will be joined by Jean Charles Wirth, CEO of LifeScience, Danny Bar-Zohar, CEO of Healthcare, and Benjamin Hein, CEO of Electronics, Kai will share our updated outlook and guidance with you. With that, I'm pleased to hand it over to Kai to kick us off. Thank you, Florian, and good afternoon, good morning, and thanks to you all for joining us today. So before we get to the numbers, let me first give you a sense of where we stand strategically and highlight the milestones we have achieved in recent months since announcing our strategic direction in May. Each of these milestones addresses the evolving expectations of our customers and patients in an increasingly complex world. Geopolitical tensions, shifting trade dynamics, active policy debates, and Accelerating AI Driven Technology Rays are all shaping the environment in which we operate. In this c...