Merck & Co., Inc.
MRK · Healthcare · $371.7B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · · Wide moat ·
On the watchlist
The five investor questions
2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $48.7B to $65.0B, increasing; diluted EPS 5.14 to 7.28, increasing.
Median gross margin 70.0% over 10y, very stable.
Not enough years of ROIC data to score returns on capital.
Net debt/EBITDA 1.2x, interest coverage 17x.
Owner earnings changed +11.1%/yr over up to the ten most recent annual observations.
The returnsOnCapital component abstained: Not enough years of ROIC data to score returns on capital. The other four 20% weights were renormalized over the scored 80%.
Price vs. value if growth stopped today
A cautious baseline, not a price target: what the shares may support if normalized owner earnings simply hold steady.
- $14.5B
- $65.25
- $105.70
- $150.34
- 130% above value if growth stopped today
What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~18%/yr over 5 years. The zero-growth estimate assumes owner earnings stay flat (0% growth).
How to read this
We solve for the constant annual change in owner earnings that would make the five-year zero-growth estimate equal today’s price. This keeps the existing model inputs and calculation unchanged; it is an expectations lens, not a forecast.
This zero-growth estimate assumes trailing owner earnings persist — unreliable for declining businesses. The recent FY revenue series does not trigger the three-consecutive-declines flag.
Among the current top-score group, the median current price is 235% above the zero-growth estimate across 49 of the current top 50 companies by Moat Score with both values.
Score records captured Sep 7, 2026.
Exactly which 50 companies?
FTNT, META, MEDP, IBEX, MSFT, GOOG, LULU, ANF, IDXX, TXRH, FHI, QLYS, FFIV, ADBE, LLY, MANH, VEEV, RMD, GRMN, PCTY, EAT, UI, SSD, MNST, DOCS, LRCX, MCO, CPRT, NTAP, NVDA, CORT, SFM, MPTI, ULTA, SN, ROL, CTAS, PAYC, IRMD, INTU, DECK, MORN, JKHY, TPR, LGCY, DAL, GWW, ISRG, MPWR, LOPE
Missing a usable price or zero-growth estimate: ANF.
Model details under moat-index@3.0.0: zero-growth multiple 11.1×, capped-growth comparison at no more than 18×; 9% discount rate; high-end growth 4% (capped at 4%) using min(5y revenue CAGR, 5y diluted-EPS CAGR), clamped to 0%–4%; maintenance capex uses min(capex, D&A); abstain when D&A is unavailable. This is a disclosed model range, not intrinsic value as fact.
20 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
Merck & Co., Inc. booked $65.0B of revenue in FY2025 in the Healthcare sector and kept 74.8% of it as gross profit — a high-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 28.1% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $24.2B (FY2007) to $65.0B (FY2025) — about 5.6% a year compounded over 18 years.
The balance sheet carried $49.3B of total debt in FY2025 against $20.0B of owner earnings — roughly 2.5 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 74/100.
This breakdown is generated from the filed numbers and sub-scores above — no outside narrative, no estimates. Where a filing doesn’t disclose an input, the sentence that would need it is omitted instead of guessed.
Exact FY and FY-1 financing invested-capital inputs are required.. Current-year EBIT, tax expense, and non-zero pretax income are required for standard ROIC.
Exact FY and FY-1 financing invested-capital inputs are required.. Current-year EBIT, tax expense, and non-zero pretax income are required for standard ROIC.
The explained ROIC gaps have filed inputs but no meaningful positive invested-capital denominator. Other gaps mean the item is not in the filings for that year. The series is never interpolated or estimated. The Table view lists every filed value, including operating and net margins, total debt, and share count.
Visual explainers
The filing-backed explainer service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed chart is shown.
Moat Score history
Tier changesSame-methodology and same-normalizer crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
- Normalizer upgraded unstamped (version unknown)tomoat-xbrl-normalizer@1.1.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 26, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@2.0.0tomoat-index@3.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 23, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.2.0tomoat-index@2.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 20, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.1.0tomoat-index@1.2.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 17, 2026
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record cannot be reconstructed retroactively, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Insider activity
Form 4 reports mix P/S market or private transactions with compensation-plan mechanics. Activity casually described as “insider selling” can include compensation mechanics; awards, tax withholding, and option exercises are shown by their exact filed class here, never collapsed into “Bought” or “Sold.”
These are disclosed filing facts and arithmetic aggregates, not a signal or verdict.
This machine-readable surface covers SEC ownership filings from 2003; it does not represent earlier paper-era records.
Records still being gathered — partial as of retrieval Sep 9, 2026.
13 filings were skipped because the SEC primary document returned 404; the omission is disclosed and aggregates are withheld.
Trailing-12-month totals and the 90-day cluster result are withheld because this issuer walk is incomplete.
| Insider | Shares owned after | Date | Filing detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guindo ChirfiEVP, Access, Policy & Comms | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 10,000 | $135.00 | $1,350,000 | 36,613.127 | Aug 13, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Zachary JenniferEVP, General Counsel | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 2 paired events | 54,927 | $109.7755 | $6,029,637 | See lot detail | Aug 12, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
| Zachary JenniferEVP, General Counsel | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 80,315 | $133.4557 | $10,718,495 | 45,509.254 | Aug 12, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Zachary JenniferEVP, General Counsel | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Stock Option (Right to Buy) · 2 paired events | 54,927 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | See lot detail | Aug 12, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
| DeLuca Richard R.EVP&Pres, Merck Animal Heallth | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 11,699 | $131.6345 | $1,539,992 | See lot detail | Aug 12, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
| DeLuca Richard R.EVP&Pres, Merck Animal Heallth | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 12,837 | $131.7618 | $1,691,426 | See lot detail | Aug 11, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
| DeLuca Richard R.EVP&Pres, Merck Animal Heallth | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 20,784 | $130.4345 | $2,710,951 | 134,703.07 | Aug 10, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| DeLuca Richard R.EVP&Pres, Merck Animal Heallth | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 6,050 | $130.3756 | $788,773 | See lot detail | Aug 6, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Guindo ChirfiEVP, Access, Policy & Comms | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 15,000 | $131.00 | $1,965,000 | 46,613.127 | Aug 6, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Maraldo David R.EVP & Pres. MMD | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 3 paired events | 18,706 | $82.2461 | $1,538,495 | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Maraldo David R.EVP & Pres. MMD | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 18,706 | $128.7179 | $2,407,797 | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Maraldo David R.EVP & Pres. MMD | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Stock Option (Right to Buy) · 3 paired events | 18,706 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Williams David MichaelEVP,Chief Info&Digital Officer | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 3 paired events | 52,847 | $74.4863 | $3,936,377 | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Williams David MichaelEVP,Chief Info&Digital Officer | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 52,847 | $128.7707 | $6,805,145 | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
| Williams David MichaelEVP,Chief Info&Digital Officer | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Stock Option (Right to Buy) · 3 paired events | 52,847 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | See lot detail | Aug 5, 2026 | 3 filed lots
|
Source-event as of . Retrieved .
Track record
How Merck & Co., Inc.’s moat rated in each of the years we can reconstruct from its filings — scored only on what was knowable at the time — and what its price and returns did afterward. The score never saw a price; the two are joined only in hindsight, for education, not as a signal.
How to read this: each dot is what the engine would have scored MRK on that December 31; the line below is its total-return price path (dividends reinvested) in the years since.
Two tracks, one timeline: the score has its own 0–100 scale (top), the price its own 100-based scale (bottom) — never a shared axis. The indexed price path isn't available for this company yet; gaps in the score line are years with no reconstructed rating (see the table for why). The Table view carries every value.
What followed, in the years it rated Wide
In the reconstructed history shown, MRK did not rate Wide-moat in any year, so there is no wide-moat track record to report. That absence is itself the honest answer — we don’t manufacture a comparison where the rating never earned one.
Healthcare context
#8 of 708 scored Healthcare companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #6IRMD IRADIMED CORPORATION90.6 out of 100, Wide moatWide moat
- #7ISRG Intuitive Surgical, Inc.89.8 out of 100, Wide moatWide moat
- #9LFVN LIFEVANTAGE CORP89.2 out of 100, Wide moatWide moat
- #10ZTS Zoetis Inc.88.9 out of 100, Wide moatWide moat
Compare MRK with its nearest peers →All Healthcare companies on the Index →
Common questions about MRK
- Does Merck & Co., Inc. have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK) 89.2 out of 100 — a Wide moat. The five questions behind that score begin at 20% each; if exactly one genuinely lacks data, the other four weights are renormalized and disclosed. revenue and EPS trend 88, pricing power 98, returns on capital not measurable from the filings, balance-sheet safety 74, capital allocation 97.
- Is MRK trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The value if growth stopped today — a zero-growth baseline — is $65.25 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $150.34, that is 130% above value if growth stopped today. The model also publishes a capped-growth comparison, but the zero-growth estimate is the cautious baseline. It assumes trailing owner earnings persist and is unreliable for declining businesses. This is an educational estimate from primary SEC filings, not intrinsic value as a fact or investment advice.
- How has MRK's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 21 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 89.2 out of 100 (wide moat). No tier changes on record yet. (Methodology or normalizer upgrades on Jul 17, 2026, Jul 20, 2026, Jul 23, 2026, Jul 26, 2026 re-based the score; readings across versions aren't compared.) The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.