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| MSD Korea President Don Hyun, center in the front row, holds a bouquet of flowers along with the company's employees after getting a prize for corporate social responsibility activities from the Korea Management Association Consulting this month at the Grand Hilton Seoul. / Courtesy of MSD Korea |
By Kim Tae-gyu
Earlier this month, the Korea Management Association Consulting (KMAC) gave prizes to a total of 39 companies operating here for their outstanding performance this year.
Among them was the single pharmaceutical company, MSD Korea, whose corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities were honored by the authoritative consultancy.
MSD Korea said that the Seoul-based company's CSR activities are in line with its corporate philosophy.
"Based on the belief that a company's social responsibilities will lead to business development, we put forth our utmost efforts for CSR programs,'' MSD Korea spokeswoman Park Sun-mi said.
"Through continuing to work on CSR initiatives, we will grow to become one of the most respected health-care companies."
Such an approach is also in tandem with those of MSD's global offices, known as Merck in the United States and Canada. The world's No. 2 pharmaceutical firm's founder George Merck was famous for attempting to build the company on good will with his well-known quote of "Medicine is for the people. It is not for profits."
Included in MSD Korea's representative CSR projects is the "Love in Action," whereby employees voluntarily help the underprivileged people such as the disabled.
For example, its workers have visited libraries for the blind where they read books for visitors since 2011. This year, they participated in making talking books.
It also helps out poor children or senior citizens around its head office in Mapo-gu.
"We started Love-in-Action five years ago and the company also underpins employees so that they are able to conduct charity activities," Park said.
"For one, they are allowed to use 20 hours a year during the work time."
To become a responsible corporate citizen, MSD Korea has also attempted to improve the domestic medical business.
The pharmaceutical giant created a dedicated Website dubbed MDfaculty (mdfaculty.com) where it provides high-quality medical information free of charge to medical staff.
Since its launch in 2002, the number of subscribers kept increasing almost 20 percent every year to reach 16,000 as of now. More than one out of every five doctors in Korea is a member of the Website.
To encourage promising doctors, the company started the MSD Young Schweitzer Award in 2001, which has become one of the most-coveted prizes in Asia's No. 4 economy.
In addition, MSD jockeys to help domestic pharmaceutical companies globalize. After signing a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health and Welfare last year, it plans to buttress homegrown companies, which look to tap into offshore markets.
"Instead of CSR, we have our own term of CR, which is short for corporate responsibility. CR is a stronger concept than CSR. That means that we are very serious about fulfilling our responsibilities across the board," the spokeswoman said.
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