默沙东

Merck (MSD outside the US/Canada) is rendered as 默沙东 (Mò shā dōng) in Chinese. 默 means 'silent/tacit', 沙 means 'sand', and 东 means 'east'. The American pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. is known as MSD (Merck Sharp & Dohme) internationally, and its Chinese name phonetically renders 'Merck Sharp & Do(hme)'. Merck developed numerous blockbuster drugs including vaccines and cardiovascular medications.

Character-by-character pronunciation

默沙东 uses 3 characters to represent the brand name in Chinese. Each character contributes to the phonetic or semantic rendering.