NEXT VIOXX TRIAL POSTPONED
October 21, 2005 07:09

The third civil trial involving Vioxx, the arthritis painkiller that Merck pulled from the market last year, has been postponed up to six months, according to plaintiff's lawyer Mark Lanier. Lanier said that the next Vioxx trial has been postponed from its original date of Oct. 24 until as late as April. Lanier is representing family members of Anna Guerra in Texas Superior Court in Edinburgh, Texas. Guerra, a 39-year-old mother of two, died in 2001 of pulmonary embolism after taking Vioxx for two or three months, said Lanier. The family blames Vioxx for her death.

Aaron Smith, CNN/Money, 10/19/2005.

Even as it insisted that its Vioxx painkiller didn't carry added heart-attack risks for patients who took it, Merck & Co. discussed producing a version of the drug that would reduce such risks, a company executive testified. Following a March 2000 study that showed Vioxx caused a greater number of heart attacks compared with naproxen, an older painkiller similar to aspirin, Merck executives filed a patent on a version of Vioxx that included a compound that might offer patients cardiovascular protection.

Heather Won Tesoriero, The Wall Street Journal, 10/18/2005.