LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Merck: Companies
built 623 days ago
Merck helps those who are hooked on hamburgers. Drugs treating ailments associated with American eating habits -- high cholesterol, hypertension, and heart failure -- are among Merck's biggest sellers. Its drugs include hypertension fighters Cozaar and Hyzaar and cholesterol combatants Vytorin, Zetia, and Zocor. Merck makes drugs in a broad range of other therapeutic areas as well: Propecia treats male pattern baldness, Singulair treats asthma, and Fosamax fights osteoporosis. In addition to pharmaceuticals, the company makes childhood and adult vaccines for such diseases as measles, mumps, hepatitis, and shingles. In 2006 Merck was awarded FDA approval for its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.
Source:
According to the FTC, when Merck acquired Medco in late 1993, it became the first pharmaceutical manufacturer to vertically integrate into the then relatively-new business of pharmacy benefit management. Since then, several other pharmaceutical companies have joined with PBMs. In 1995, the FTC challenged Eli Lilly and Company’s acquisition of PCS, another PBM, from the McKesson Corporation, alleging violation of the antitrust laws. At that time, the Commission pledged to monitor the industry carefully and cautioned that it might take future action if it concluded there were signs of anticompetitive conduct in the industry.
Source:
Merck & Co. has been cited by federal regulators for numerous quality-control problems at a manufacturing plant where several important vaccines are made. The Food and Drug Administration issued two enforcement reports extensive reviews of manufacturing practices -- following inspections of a Merck plant in Pennsylvania this past summer and fall, according to documents obtained by The Star-Ledger. After the second report was compiled in November, the Merck executive incharge of vaccine operations at the West Point, Pa., plant took early retirement, according to a company memo. The FDA found Merck improperly performed procedures for sterility, testing and documentation, among other things.
Source:
Merck has even been caught red-handed trying to suppress negative information about its drugs. Gurkirpal Singh, a Stanford University researcher, was threatened by the company and told he would "flame out" (meaning his career would be ended) unless he stopped giving "anti-Merck" lectures. This has now been revealed in a letter of complaint written to Merck by Dr. James Fries, a Stanford University Medical School professor, who went on to say, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, "There is a line that you can't go across. It had gone over that line."
Source:
Merck & Co. or MSD describes itself as a “a global research-driven pharmaceutical company. Merck discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of innovative products to improve human and animal health, directly and through its joint ventures.” The Merck Company Foundation has distributed over $480 million to educational and non-profit organizations since it was founded in 1957.[1]
Source:
After Merck withdrew Vioxx, evidence surfaced that the company had withheld early evidence of its dangers. In December 2005, the editors of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine issued a rare "Expression of Concern" regarding a 2000 Merck report on Vioxx in which "Merck scientists failed to report three nonfatal heart attacks among the Vioxx users. not the 17 reported." Merck argued that the heart attacks occurred after the study cut-off date, but the Journal editors maintained that they should have submitted an update, pointing out that "the three heart attacks occurred shortly after the study's end." The Journal editors ... said that Merck "withheld more relevant data about strokes and other heart problems linked to the drug, producing inaccuracies and deletions that 'call into question the integrity of the data'." [9]
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Companies