Merck KGaA (ETR:MRK) reported accelerating organic sales and earnings growth in the second quarter of 2026, led by Life Science and Electronics, and raised its full-year outlook for sales, EBITDA pre and earnings per share.
Group net sales rose 3.4% year over year to €5.434 billion
Organic sales grew 4.1%, while currency effects reduced sales by 1.1% and portfolio effects added 0.4%. EBITDA pre increased 9.4% on a reported basis to €1.6 billion, with organic growth of 9.3%. The EBITDA pre margin expanded by 1.6 percentage points to 29.4%. “Q2 was a pretty robust quarter,” Group Chief Executive Officer Kai Beckmann said, citing growth momentum in Life Science and Electronics as well as continued contributions from rare-disease products in Healthcare.
Life Science Growth Driven by Process Solutions Life Science organic sales increased 8% in the quarter, with Process Solutions growing 15%. Chief Financial Officer Helene von Roeder said the business continued to benefit from healthy underlying demand, stronger purchasing activity in Asia-Pacific and new customer projects, although the temporary uplift began normalizing during the quarter. Advanced Solutions grew 4% organically as the research-spending environment improved gradually, while Discovery Solutions increased 2% despite continued market softness, including in China.