Li Dean Y 4

What Happened Dean Y. Li, Executive Vice President & President, MRL at Merck & Co. (MRK), exercised 15,087 stock options at a $56.04 strike on 2026-02-04 and then sold those 15,087 shares in the open market the same day. The exercise cost reported was $845,475; the subsequent sale generated $1,791,824 in proceeds (weighted average sale price $118.77), for a difference of roughly $946,349 before taxes and fees. This is effectively a cashless exercise followed by an immediate sale rather than a purchase as a bullish signal.

Key Details

• Transaction date: 2026-02-04; Form 4 filed 2026-02-06 (timely within standard two-business-day window).
• Exercise: 15,087 shares at $56.04 per share (total reported cost $845,475) — transaction code M (exercise/conversion of derivative).
• Sale: 15,087 shares sold in open market at a weighted average $118.77 (total proceeds $1,791,824) — transaction code S. Sale prices ranged $118.72–$118.83 (see footnote F1).
• A derivative disposition line at $0.00 reflects the option conversion upon exercise (reported as M/derivative).
• Shares owned after the transaction are not disclosed in this filing.
• Footnotes: F1 (weighted average sale price; price range provided), F2 (exercise price/holdings adjusted related to the 2021 Organon spin-off), F3 (option vested in equal installments 5/4/2019, 5/4/2020, 5/4/2021).

Context This was an option exercise combined with an immediate sale (a common cashless-exercise/liquidation event) rather than an outright purchase of shares as a long-term buy. The filing is routine and timely; no 10b5-1 plan or tax-withholding/gift indications are stated in the disclosed footnotes. For investors, such transactions show a manager converting vested compensation into cash but do not, by themselves, indicate a change in insider sentiment about Merck.