Merck To Settle Vioxx Suits For $4.85B

Payments May Vary; 85% Of Plaintiffs Must Agree To Drop Cases Against Drug Maker

(CBS/AP)  Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. said on Friday it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of state and federal lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx in one of the largest drug settlements ever.

Company officials estimated the deal, if accepted, would end 45,000 to 50,000 personal injury lawsuits involving United States Vioxx users who suffered a heart attack or ischemic stroke, the type in which blood flow to the brain is blocked.

Merck pulled Vioxx from the market September 30, 2004 after its researchers determined the blockbuster arthritis treatment, then pulling in about $2.5 billion a year, doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The lawsuits quickly piled up and Merck vowed to fight them all. So far, it's won 11 of 16, which is why today's settlement came as a surprise to some.

The $4.85 billion payout amounts to less than one year's profit for the pharmaceutical giant, said CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

Merck executive vice president Kenneth Frazier called the agreement "responsible and reasonable" and allows Merck to better quantify its liability, once estimated as high as $50 billion.

Negotiating teams met more than 50 times in eight states and spoke hundreds of times by telephone over many months to hammer out the deal, according to attorneys.

"I think what Merck said is, 'Hold on a second, we're going to be fighting this potentially for 4 or 5 more years, that's billions of dollars in legal fees, let's take than money and instead of giving it to the lawyers, give it to the plaintiffs,'" said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

But Merck's ordeal isn't over: It's still facing criminal inquiries into charges that it knew about Vioxx's deadly side effects, and tried to cover them up.

"Today is a great day for the court system in New Orleans and in California, Texas, and New Jersey. The potential to resolve 30 to 40 thousand cases of heart attack and stroke alleged caused by Vioxx have been resolved after 11 months of secret negotiations," said Russ Herman, a New Orleans attorney who served as chairman of Voixx plaintiff's negotiating committee.

To qualify for a settlement, plaintiffs must have filed claims by Thursday and meet several criteria, including medical proof that they suffered a heart attack or stroke, that they received at least 30 Vioxx pills and that they received enough pills to support a presumption that they were ingested within two weeks before injury.

That is a big concession by Merck, which has long claimed that Vioxx caused harm only after 18 months of use.

Those claims were dismissed by independent scientists and plaintiffs lawyers.

Merck stressed that the agreement is not a class action settlement and that it is not admitting fault.

Company executives and attorneys said as recently as last month that every case would be fought individually.

But on Friday, they said several factors made this "the right time" for the deal, including the expiration of the statute of limitations in 42 states.

Merck said it will take a pre-tax charge for the full $4.85 billion in the current quarter.

"It's a huge settlement but Merck was paying hundreds of millions of dollars every year in legal fees alone to fight the lawsuits so the company clearly figured that it was best to simply get rid of all these cases," said Cohen.

The deal does not include people in foreign countries.

Herman Saftlas, an Equity Analyst with Standard and Poor's, said Friday's announcement was "a positive for the pharmaceutical industry."

"It shows that companies such as Merck, that really took it on the chin in a big way about three years ago when the Vioxx news first broke, it shows that companies such as Merck and others are able to manage these liabilities, and come out ahead," said Saftlas.

Investors seemed to agree, as Merck shares trading jumped nearly five percent, or $2.67, to $57.44 - near their 52-week high of $58.36.


A Glance At Merck's $4.85 Billion Settlement With Vioxx Users:

Merck & Co. will pay $4.85 billion to tens of thousands of Vioxx users who can show proof they suffered a heart attack or stroke.

People who filed claims by Nov. 8, 2007, and can prove they had a heart attack or stroke are eligible. The amount that each victim gets depends the severity and date of the injury, Vioxx usage and whether they had risk factors such as smoking or obesity.

Plaintiffs get amounts that vary, depending on how badly they were hurt and the amount of time they used Vioxx. Merck gets to put a firm number on its liability and end the uncertainty of years of trials.

Some 46,000 people sued Merck after Vioxx was pulled from the market in 2004 after a company study found the painkiller doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Until Friday, Merck maintained it would fight every case and made no settlements. Results at trials had been mixed, with Merck prevailing in 10 of 15 verdicts and appealing the losses.

Merck does not admit any fault, but the deal allows the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company to put a final price on the case and avoid years of litigation.

[sparks224]

Should I still ask my doctor if Vioxx is right for me?

OK then, I''ll just wait for the TV to tell me what to do.

[karenburns3]

And I just heard the company plans on giving Vioxx to children I guess they figure it will take longer for their hearts to fail.....Only in America where people put their blind trust into an agency (the FDA) which admits its too over burdened to check each new medicine. We all know how they checked out vioxx they knew it would cause harm and did nothing about it. Untill one worker was brave enough to tell the truth I can only wonder how many more deaths would be caused by vioxx.

[carlylaine]

Do any of you morons who believe that settlement was too high think that the drug companies are not in this for the money? OF COURSE THEY ARE.

$4.85B is a drop in the bucket compared to what they made off doctors and patients-at the risk of the patient''s lives and well-being.

THIS ISN''T the same a smoking. We all know the dangers of some smoking. But MEDICINE-while a plight of capitalism is also touted as a help to humans through life.

It''s far better to die thinking there is no help than to take all of the garbage doctors cram down our throats and die at the hands of IDIOTs.

Sue! SUE! SUE! and keep on suing til you can sue no more. Maybe PHARM will wise up.

[michellem99-2009]

Will they the people hurt by their drugs ever see a dime..They say the drug maker settled it but when will the folks be payed. Settled means settled. Now pay up.

[sblake63]

Someone commented that a jury of your peers is incapable of deciding what amount Merck should be fined; maybe they have never heard of expert witnesses.


Posted by curse914 at 11:00 PM : Nov 09, 2007
____________________________


So called "expert" witness'' do not use their areas of so called expertise to decide how much a company should pay out in a lawsuit. They use their so called areas of expertise to explain to the jury WHY the defendant(s) should be punished.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs come up with an initial amount they think (and I stress think) is fair and it''s up to the jury and finally the judge to adjust the final payout, after some "negotiation" by lawyers on both sides.

Most civil lawsuits are bull sh*it. When people are hurt or killed it should be a CRIMINAL matter, not a civil one. You know whets funny people who call themselves liberal and moderate seem to have no problem speaking out against so called "greed", but when greed is used to punish those who they hate - they have no problems with it.

Lets end these retarded lawsuits and drive costs down. If drug companies hurt people, lock up their executives for life

[sblake63]

Posted by tngreen at 10:54 PM : Nov 09, 2007

Human life will also be lost by people not being able to pay their medical bills or even see a doctor because they cant afford it. The same political party (the democrats) want universal health care because they say there is so many uninsured. Well nobody can afford it thanks to the fact 60 % of your doctor''s visit cost is to cover malpractice insurance. So the party who helped create the problem (trial lawyers are biggest dem supporters lol), want to seize control of the health care system to fix a problem they created.

How about instead of using money to punish them, we use prison time. If the drug company knew their drug was dangerous, and people died - that''s murder not a civil suit.

We have sued ourselves into oblivion LOL. This nonsense has to stop.

[tngreen]

sblake63, you do not know what you''re talking about. Merck''s internal documents show that they knew that this drug had potentially lethal side effects, and they suppressed this information to keep Vioxx on the market. It is not a valid comparison to compare a smoker to somebody who has a painful, debilitating disease and who treats it with a medication prescribed by his doctor and approved by the FDA. The records show that Merck knew they were killing people.

Further, there are many people like me who were severly injured by Vioxx but who will never see a dime from this lawsuit for reasons that are not approporiate to go into here. As a former Vioxx user, I can assure you that I was never told about the dangers of this drug and that I took it against my better judgement (I''m justifiably afraid of new drugs) but at my doctor''s insistence, because it was "safer" than the anti-inflammatory that I had been taking for my rheumatoid arthritis. Now, minus a kidney, I know better.

Punitive damages are meant to do just what the word says--punish. The fine has to be brutal, it has to hurt, it has to serve as a warning to the next greedy SOB who decides to put profit ahead of human life. This money will never replace the precious mothers and fathers and sons and daughters whose lives were taken prematurely by Merck''s greed and reckless disregard for human life. But it might make the next Merck think twice about putting the American public at risk in the name of profit.

[sblake63]

$4.85B lawsuits - The reason your d*amn medical costs are so high. Yes people were hurt. But we need to ban "punitive" damages and only allow compensatory damages. NOBODY is qualified to come up with such outlandish figures to punish companies or individuals. This insanity must stop.

I absolutely HATE smoking. But I am old enough to remember there''s been warnings on packs of cigarettes for at least 30 years. Yet tobacco companies have to pay RETARDED smokers for their own mistakes? This nonsense has to stop. They gave themselves lung cancer, and what ever else that resulting from smoking. Did they target kids in their ads? Maybe they did. Who is responsible for the kids, parents maybe? As far as I am concerned, if you place a warning on a label and some *** smokes it, ingests it... Your NOT liable!

$4.85B is freaking INSANE!

[denn034]

Merck has only itself to blame for this for rushing to market before fully studying Vioxx.

[antoniof123]

I remember in the 60''s it was bad but now it seems to be worst. Of course we put the Democrats in charge and they started to enact laws that protected us and we kept the Republicans out of power for 40 year that was because of a Senator (McCarthy). This is because of a President I wonder how long it will be for them this time.

You know you would think they would learn but they must not be very smart.

[lawyertom1]

And, yes, the Shrub and friends have done their best to make sure that agencies like the FDA and CPSC have been made ineffective, to be polite. I guess it is no surprise that they sought to protect their buddies through the back door.

[lawyertom1]

Given that the evidence of causation was relatively weak, I am surprised that Merck settled this early in the process. However, the scientific research was beginning to find a mechanism to explain the effect of Vioxx and all Cox-2 inhibitors. They appear to interfere with at least one and possibly more enzymes that influence blood coagulation. Although far from proven, it suggests how Cox-2 inhibitors might contribute to heart attacks.

[antoniof123]

And in case you are wondering that is around 100 k per for 47,000 after you deduct fees that makes it about 60,000 per so that is what life is worth to these manufactures and to the Republicans they are the ones who want caps.

Keep following them America and your life will be worth the same. Of course that is better than the 4,000 dead soldiers families got.

Lets not forget about the wounded that returned from Iraq you think they got that much.

[antoniof123]

Heads should fall but will they ???

Posted by drinuk at 09:48 AM : Nov 09, 2007

Hey this is capitalism at its best you know where the businesses get to voluntarily participate in what they want to do right and what they want to do wrong.

[GRPDiver]

Are you people for real? Blaming Democrats, blaming Republicans, blaming anybody, and throwing out wild babbling accusations and drawing unfounded conclusions in babbling, incoherent postings? Ever heard of logical reasoning and persuasive writing? Ever heard of spell check? Ever heard of grammar and punctuation?

Take the aluminum foil off your head protecting you from government or alien probing of your thoughts and go back to school and get your GED.

It''s scary to read these postings and think that these are the Americans working in our businesses, deciding on our leaders, and breeding. Maybe Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had it right: "Three generations of idiots are enough."

[prinzowhales]

That all? The final word on the value of 60,000 Americans...a measley few billions...no criminal suit--these b*stards knew that their vile concoction depleted the critical CoQ10--they even put this in the first formulation and then removed it. THIS WAS PRE-MEDITATED MURDER...Like the Texas Tower shooter... they knew they would kill people...they just didn''t know who their victims would be...Why aren''t these murdering b*stards beneath the jail!! Why are they still in business!!

[oscarez]

Republican policy is to "do no harm to business". This means Republicans gut regulatory agencies, impose no regulations and any thing goes so long as business comes out on top. This is a redistribution of wealth to businesses and the people that run the businesses. If it were not for tort law 80% of the U.S. population wound have no rights.

[bogusbones]

Our government, especially in the Bush years and starting with Reagan, has increasingly had our regulatory agencies run by the people from the industries they are supposed to regulate. This administration has reduced funding to many regulatory agencies in order to attempt to pay for this illegal war in Iraq. Example the meat industry. Have you ever known so many outbreaks of e-coli? Why? The animals, packing plants and all the associated channels of distribution are not adhering to the rules that govern their industry. Why? They know they aren''t going to get caught because there isn''t any enforcement. If, by chance, they do get caught, the fines are minimal, so make the high profits and pay the fine.

What is sad is that so much of the public is unaware how the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies have so many liaisons just like the Vioxx disaster. drinuk is absolutely right. The connection between Big Pharma and the FDA is undeniable. So many former FDA members go to work with a pharmaceutical company when they leave the FDA and usually for 10 of millions of dollars compensation. The decisions they made while serving on the FDA results in billions of dollars for Big Pharma. This system is a disgrace design for profit, health has nothing to do with it.

[drinuk]

Tip of the Iceberg, wait until the MMR poison comes home to roost, thousands of maimed children and a generation lost. What punishment will be handed out to the crooked mob at the FDA over this wicked denigration of duty and disregard to for public safety. Heads should fall but will they ???