Merck – battling over withdrawn drug January 31, 2007
Posted by silviamocanu07 in Business-Society Issues, pharmaceutical.trackback
I found this interesting article in the Financial Times – here is the link – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/573c20ec-b06d-11db-8a62-0000779e2340.html – and the issue discussed is Merck’s intention to fight lawsuits over its withdrawn painkiller drug called Vioxx.
Merck has already invested a significant amount of money into fighting lawsuits and it continues to refuse to settle any of them, despite the fact that this issue has taken a toll on their profit growth.
I think that the R&D costs that they have already invested in the drug are significant, therefore, they do not want to simply give up on such a large scale project. What do you guys think?
Given the significant expense already incurred in order to fight lawsuits brought against this one product, I think that Merck shoudl rethink their strategy and maybe try and improve the drug. In addition, this has already affected their income, particularly for the last quarter, therefore I believe that they should rethink the possibility of settling lawsuits, rather than pumping more money into them?Do you think that this the withdrawal of the drug could impact the company image as a whole or that it could take a long-term toll on their net income?
Silvia, Happy to see you put this here as a post.
I deleted it from the “About” page.