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BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT
31 August, 2005: With nearly 5,000 Vioxx suits have already been filed, and tens of thousands more are expected, Merck may consider offering settlements in a few cases. The drug maker would consider settlement of suits brought by people who took Vioxx for long periods of time and had few other risk factors for heart disease, company sources suggested.
Merck has, so far, been maintaining that it planned to defend every personal-injury lawsuit filed over Vioxx, a painkiller and arthritis medicine that has been shown to raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
The new stand reflects a shift in its strategy following verdict of by an US court to pay damages of about $253 million to a Texan widow whose husband had died in his bed in 2001 after taking Vioxx for eight months. The award was among the highest ever given to an individual plaintiff, although Texas law will automatically reduce it to about $26 million.
Analysts see Merck’s willingness to consider settling some cases was an important first step in undoing the damage that Vioxx had caused.
Merck stopped selling Vioxx in September 2004 after a clinical trial showed that patients taking the drug for more than 18 months had a substantially higher risk of heart attacks and strokes than people taking a placebo. Other trials have shown that Vioxx raises heart risks over a shorter period of time compared with a placebo or with naproxen, an older painkiller.
The next Vioxx suit is already scheduled for hearing next month in a state court in New Jersey. The case involves a man who suffered a heart attack after taking the drug for a short time. In New Orleans, a federal judge set trial schedules for four Vioxx cases, including one in November and three more in early 2006.
There are around 1,800 Vioxx lawsuits already filed in federal courts around the country. The four scheduled cases are to cover several different kinds of plaintiffs, including people who took Vioxx for a long period of time and those who took the drug for only a few weeks or months.
Merck believes it has a better chance of success in federal court than state court. Federal courts usually have stricter rules on what evidence can be presented than state courts, and federal judges typically have less patience for the aggressive tactics sometimes used by plaintiffs' lawyers, analysts said.
Lawyers and Wall Street analysts opined that Merck could eventually face more than 50,000 lawsuits.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT
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