Medicine sales help to maintain Merck KGaA growth

Growing sales in the Healthcare and Life Science business units cancelled out declines in the Performance Materials arm to keep revenue and earnings on the up at Germany’s Merck KGaA (MRK: DE) in its quarterly financial results.

Group net sales for the third quarter of 2019 were 4.05 billion euros ($4.45 billion), an increase of 8.1% on the same period of 2018, while its EBITDA pre — or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization before one-time items — were 1.11 billion euros, up 15.4% and ahead of analysts’ average estimate of 1.06 billion euros.

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