The Innovation Award – an incentive for creative minds

Merck encourages its employees to self-initiative, creativity and innovation. The Innovation Award – a global and cross-divisional award for Merck employees – was launched in 1998. It aims to honor innovative achievements that contribute toward developing new products, increasing efficiency or saving costs.
The Innovation Award is not only aimed at engineers and scientists, but all employees. As innovative ideas are often born in a team, the Award is also intended to promote teamwork.
In addition to the Corporate Innovation Award, there are also three subcategories with their own awards:
  • Entrepreneurial Thinking
  • Customer Focus
  • Intercultural Cooperation
Merck Innovation Award Team 2009
The happy winners: the team from the division Performance & Life Science Chemicals that developed the lateral flow tests
Winners:
  • In 2009, the Innovation Award went to the team responsible for “Lateral Flow Tests for the detection of pathogenic bacteria” from the division Performance & Life Science Chemicals in Darmstadt. Under the brand names Singlepath and Duopath, Merck sells microbiological test kits that make it easier for customers – notably those in the food industry – to perform quality assurance and quality control.
  • In 2008, the Biomarker Task Force Erbitux KRAS won the award. A biomarker is a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biologic processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention. The team showed how a biomarker can be used to better identify patients who will respond to the oncology drug Erbitux.
  • In 2007, the Award went to the team “The Next Generation of Liquid Crystal (LC) Mixture Production”. The winning team developed a novel mixture and purification process for liquid crystal production.
  • In 2006, the Award went to the team of the project “Merck Global Cash Management”. The team established a new system for the internal processing of intercompany payments.
  • In 2005, the VINCIP team was honored for the strategic project “Virtual Incubator for Intellectual Property”.
  • In 2004, the Cetuximab team received the Innovation Award for its research and development work on the new cancer drug.
  • In 2003, the Liquid Crystals division was distinguished for its pioneering work in the development of liquid crystals.
  • In 2002, Corporate Communications received the Award for the implementation of new communication tools.
  • In 2001, a German team recived the Award for development of the Chromolith® range of chromatographic separation columns.
  • In 2000, the Award went to a team of Japanese researchers for the new Xirallic® effect pigments.

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