Merck posted fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates on sales of its pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and excluding some costs, rose 6.3 per cent to €933.4 million, the Darmstadt, Germany- based company said in a statement Tuesday. That’s higher than the €912.7 million average of 7 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Chief executive Karl-Ludwig Kley has spent the last eight years restructuring the German conglomerate, which hasn't launched a new drug in over a decade. Kley struck a deal worth $2 billion with Pfizer to develop the experimental medicine avelumab, which harnesses the body's own defenses to fight cancer. It expanded further by completing the $17 billion purchase of pharmaceutical equipment maker Sigma-Aldrich last year and spent $2.6 billion in 2014 to buy AZ Electronic Materials SA, for products used in electronics.

Deputy CEO Stefan Oschmann, with several decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, succeeds Kley in April to revive Europe’s oldest drug company.

Bloomberg