Vioxx... Did Merck know?

Merck spurned Vioxx risk study

2005-02-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

Merck & Co. planned, then dropped a study designed to determine whether its Vioxx painkiller elevated the risk of heart attacks, according to a company filing with U.S. drug regulators posted Friday.

Study proposals included testing the drug in "high-risk patients with acute coronary syndrome," Merck said in the filing with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the trial, considered in 2002, might have linked Vioxx to heart attacks and strokes earlier than a separate study that led to the world’s biggest drug recall Sept. 30. "They denied for years that they were going to do such a trial," said Eric Topol, chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s department of cardiovascular medicine. "Recruitment would not have been a problem, and the answer would have been rather rapidly" generated about the drug’s heart risk.

Marketing of Vioxx: How Merck Played Game of Catch-Up

2005-02-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

At times, it is necessary to "neutralize" the opposition, or at least Merck & Company executives seemed to think so.

In 1999, the company's new pain drug, Vioxx, was beaten to pharmacy shelves by a competing drug, Celebrex. Merck apparently hoped that nationally known rheumatologists like Dr. Roy Altman could help it catch up.

At a dinner that year in Miami, a Merck executive asked Dr. Altman what it would take to win his support, the doctor recalled. Dr. Altman said he told the executive that he wanted to run a clinical trial involving Vioxx, and, later, Merck put up $25,000 for it.

Vioxx... Did Merck know?

More Evidence Links Vioxx to Heart Attacks

Merck spurned Vioxx risk study

Marketing of Vioxx: How Merck Played Game of Catch-Up