Merck Commits To Veeva’s Vault CRM, Draws Wall Street Cheer: Retail’s Not Enthusiastic

Oppenheimer believes the announcement is incrementally positive, but it was broadly expected that Veeva would secure a commitment from Merck, given its long-term strategic partnership with the company, and industry chatter that an agreement was inevitable.

Veeva Systems (VEEV) announced on Wednesday that Merck (MRK), a major pharmaceutical company, has committed to its Vault CRM.

Vault CRM is an enterprise customer relationship management application for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. It supports field medical teams, including medical science liaisons.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around VEEV fell from ‘neutral’ to ‘bearish’ territory over the past 24 hours, accompanied by ‘normal’ message volume.

Veeva provides cloud software for the life sciences industry, serving more than 1,000 customers, ranging from the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs.

Following the news on Monday, Oppenheimer analyst Ken Wong noted that this marks Veeva's sixth enterprise pharma Vault CRM commitment. The company is gaining momentum leading up to the September general availability of Salesforce's (CRM) Life Sciences Cloud for customer engagement, it said.

The firm believes the announcement is incrementally positive. Still, it was broadly expected that Veeva would secure a commitment from Merck, given its long-term strategic partnership with the company and industry chatter that an agreement was inevitable. That said, Merck is the largest pharma company globally by revenue and a strong endorsement for Vault CRM, Wong said.

Barclays, meanwhile, noted that six of the top 20 pharma companies have committed to migrating to Vault, compared to two of the top 20 that are making an eventual move to Salesforce’s Life Sciences Cloud.

Barclays has assigned an ‘Overweight’ rating and a $300 price target to Veeva shares.

VEEV stock is up 35% this year and approximately 51% over the past 12 months.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<