Vioxx
Information
Arthritis
affects around 40 million Americans, causing pain and joint deterioration. So,
when Merck & Co., Inc. launched its new ground breaking COX-2
inhibitor drug VIOXX in 1999, it was distributed to more than
30,000 pharmacies just eleven days after approval. VIOXX is used
to relieve osteoarthritis pain, the most
common form of arthritis.
Discovered
and developed at the Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research
in Montreal, this drug made headlines because of the speed that it was
developed. VIOXX marks one of the fastest drug development successes
in the history of Merck & Co. It can only be speculated if the
speed of the development of this drug and the quickness that it was
distributed is cause for the lawsuits that now stand. To learn about
what legal rights you may have regarding the use of VIOXX, contact
us.
The government ordered Merck & Co. to cease
its promotions of VIOXX aimed to get doctors
to prescribe the drug saying that they minimized
potential safety
risks. The drug has been linked to blood clots, heart attacks, strokes,
and ulcers. The aggressive marketing campaign has been successful in that VIOXX
has made Merck $40 billion in revenues, but on September 25th the FDA sent
Merck a "Warning Letter" telling them to cease certain marketing
efforts.
Merck has been on unsteady ground with regulators
and the letter makes this clear. The marketing
campaigns for VIOXX is believed to have led to
over-prescribed instances of the drug and ill-communicated
warnings of the dangers associated with the drug
to those prescribed. The FDA's Warning Letter
echoed this feeling when they wrote "You have engaged
in a promotional campaign for VIOXX that minimizes the potentially
serious cardiovascular findings that were observed in the
Vioxx Gastrointestinal Outcomes Research."
Merck's VIOXX
is competitive with Pharmacia's Celebrex so each company
has been working to differentiate themselves through their
marketing. Each company emphasizes small differences in
the risks and benefits involved with each of
their drugs. These small advantages and flaws
begin to look huge to the company trying to set
themselves apart from the other. The FDA worries
that Merck is over accentuating the positive
attributes of VIOXX and working just as hard
to eliminate the negative. Thomas Abrams, the
director of the FDA's division of marketing,
advertising, and communications and who wrote
the letter to Merck, stated that "it's entirely possible that VIOXX
just isn't good for people's hearts."
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