Pharma companies Merck and Schering-Plough are to merge, with the former paying $41.1 billion to the latter’s shareholders.

Rather boringly, the new company will avoid having to pay millions to marketing gurus by simply being named ‘Merck’.

“The combined company will benefit from a formidable research and development pipeline, a significantly broader portfolio of medicines and an expanded presence in key international markets, particularly in high-growth emerging markets,” says Merck Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Richard T. Clark.

The merger comes hot on the heals of Pfizer’s $68 billion dollar move for Wyeth.

Jeffrey Holford, an analyst at Jefferies in London, says the deals seem “somewhat inevitable”. He told Sky News, “The industry needs to shrink because there is just not the same market for branded pharmaceuticals going forward as there has been over the last 10 years.”

Philippe Lanone, an analyst at Natixis Securities in Paris, told the Daily Telegraph, “It clearly is a year of mergers for pharmaceutical companies.”

On the In the pipeline blog, Derek Lowe says:

In a way, though, this deal saddens me, and that’s not because I used to work for Schering-Plough. It’s not like I’m worried about the fate of its corporate culture – to be honest, I can’t say that I much cared for a lot of that culture while I was there. But what strikes me is that Merck has been a symbol of a company that’s done well by going it alone, ruling out these kinds of deals for many years. It’s as if they’re breaking down and giving in, and since I’ve never cared much for mergers in this business anyway, seeing them do one is doubly disturbing.

As you might expect, the often intemperate Shearlings got plowed blog has its own take on these things.