Earlier this month, a closely-watched trial over the osteoporosis drug Fosamax ended in mistrial, to the frustration of nearly everyone involved. The trial was marked by great tension, with a deadlocked jury, reports of threats of physical violence, and a judge-ordered cooling-down period.
What could cause such intense drama? Well, this was just one of approximately [...]

[Read more →]

Are you one of millions of people battling some type of hair loss? More than half of males experience some degree of male pattern baldness by age 50, but even women and children can experience unwanted hair loss. There are more options than ever before to treat hair loss — such as herbal treatments, scalp [...]

[Read more →]

A diagnosis of high cholesterol can be intimidating, but there is a lot you can do to control this condition. In addition to modifying your diet and upping your exercise, the addition of a HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitor — a class of drugs commonly called “statins” — can safely and effectively lower your cholesterol. (HMG-CoA Reductase [...]

[Read more →]

Oh what fun it is to cover Big Pharma. First we get the Wall Street Journal crediting Peter Rost and BrandweekNRX for breaking an insider trading scandal at Schering-Plough.
Then we get Merck and Schering-Plough pulling their popular “two sources of cholesterol” commercials from television because Vytorin apparently does not reduce the buildup of fatty [...]

[Read more →]

From the Daily Dog:
The state and city of New York filed suit this week against Merck, claiming the drugmaker concealed the risks of the withdrawn arthritis treatment Vioxx. The lawsuit seeks damages, penalties and restitution for “tens of millions of taxpayer dollars wrongfully spent on Vioxx prescriptions,” the office of New York State Attorney General [...]

[Read more →]

What a nice, heart-healthy gift from the Merck rep, via On the Pharm.

[Read more →]

Remember the little problem with Vioxx? As a result, Vioxx still has more than 13,800 lawsuits on the docket. Over the last two years, only four trials have been held, but Judge Carol Higbee is looking to pick up the pace — from glacier slow to snail-in-winter slow. Higbee’s goal, according to Pharmalot, is [...]

[Read more →]

From Reuters:
Brazil’s president is to decide whether his country will honor Merck & Co’s AIDS drug patent, after the health ministry rejected the company’s price-cut. “We consider the offer insufficient and we told the manufacturer,” Brazil’s health minister, Jose Temporao, told Reuters on Thursday. “The decision (on whether to break the patent) is now [...]

[Read more →]

Besides the unexpected public outcry, there may have been another reason why Merck curtailed its lobbying efforts to make Gardasil mandatory for teens.
The stuff may not even work very well.
From GoozNews:
The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story today questioning the efficacy of Merck’s new cervical cancer vaccine. The story covers all the key [...]

[Read more →]

Yesterday, an FDA panel voted 20 to 1 not to approve Arcoxia for osteoarthritis. Why such an overwhelming number?
Apparently, Arcoxia failed to prove that it served an unmet need. According to Merrill Goozner, Merck took some pretty poor evidence with them to the trial.
Merck stepped forward with an extremely weak set of data. [...]

[Read more →]