Vioxx

A jury in Atlantic City, NJ, said Merck must pay $9 million in punitive damages to a man who says he suffered a heart attack after taking Vioxx, surprising observers who expected the drug giant to escape the latest episode of its legal saga relatively unscathed. Last week, the same jury awarded 77-year-old John McDarby $4.5 million in compensatory damages. The award surprised some legal analysts. Under New Jersey's tort reform law, punitive damages in pharmaceutical cases are not allowed …

Former Merck CEO Raymond Gilmartin testified in the punitive damages phase of the company's trial in Atlantic City, NJ. As expected, Gilmartin defended Merck's handling of the painkiller, arguing again that his company did not intentionally conceal risks associated with the drug. Gilmartin stepped down from his post in late 2004 as Merck struggled to recover from the fallout of the Vioxx revelations. The highlight of the showdown between the ex-CEO and plaintiff lawyer W. Mark Lanier …

A jury in Atlantic City, New Jersey awarded $4.5 million to a man who said he suffered a heart attack after taking Vioxx. The jury rejected a second man's claim, agreeing with defense attorneys who argued that he lacked sufficient evidence to show that he took the drug consistently. Experts had predicted that Merck would do well in New Jersey, considered home turf for the Whitehouse Station-based company.

The decision appears to seriously damage Merck's key defense of the …

The latest Vioxx trial opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Monday. Houston lawyer W. Mark Lanier hopes to repeat last year's win in a Texas courtroom. Thomas Cona of Cherry Hill blames his heart attack on the painkiller, as does fellow plaintiff John McDarby. Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in 2004 after a study showed the drug doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes if taken for an eighteen month. The drugmaker is expected to argue that neither Cona or McDarby took the drug …

The Cox-2 controversy is back in the news. A study published in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has found that people who take the painkiller Celebrex roughly double their chances of having a heart attack. The research was conducted by Dr. Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. Beasley and his team looked for data for about 13,000 patients, drawn from 6 earlier clinical trials. Celebrex, made by Pfizer, is in the same class as Vioxx, which …

The Wall Street Journal examines the Cleveland Clinic's decision to strip top cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol of his post at the hospital's medical school. A clash between Topol and Cleveland Clinic CEO Delos "Toby" Cosgrove is believed to have been a contributing factor. Topol has drawn considerable attention over the last year for his criticisms of the FDA and his participation in hearings over the safety of Merck's fallen Cox-2 inhibitor Vioxx. According to the cardiologist, …

The editors of the New England Journal of Medicine ran an unusual "statement of concern" on Thursday accusing senior scientists at Merck of intentionally concealing data from a study that showed serious cardiovascular risks associated with Vioxx. Article

(From our sister publication FierceBiotech...) Drug prices moderated somewhat over the past year, but brand-name prescription prices are still soaring far ahead of inflation, according to AARP. Their report on the wholesale prices of 200 brand name medications commonly used in the US shows a 6.1 percent price hike in the 12 months through June. That's down slightly from 7.1 percent a year ago. One bright spot: The prices of 75 generic drugs remained flat. PhRMA called …

On Friday the Food and Drug Administration announced contracts for its adverse event monitoring database, a key to the agency's plan for monitoring drug safety in the future. The FDA will use the technology to look for possible signs that a particular drug may be experiencing problems. The four organizations selected to participate in the project are Vanderbilt University, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Ingenix and Kaiser Foundation Research Institute. Of course, since the Vioxx withdrawal …

The second Vioxx trial is underway in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Although you'd expect attorneys representing Merck to be a little more deferential to jurors and tread a little more lightly after the disastrous verdict in Ernst v. Merck, that does not appear to be the case. This morning Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee threatened to declare a mistrial because of negative comments about lawyers from defense attorney Diane Sullivan in her opening remarks. "It's simply playing to the bias …