The jury said that the drug was not responsible for the heart attack suffered by the plaintiff, a postal worker from Idaho, US, who suffered the heart attack in 2001. The jury also cleared Merck of attempting to suppress information about the product.
The victory for Merck is being seen as a vindication of the company’s strategy of contesting each case against it one by one, rather than seeking out of court settlements.
Had the company suffered a defeat in this case, it would have added to the pressure on it after it was ordered to pay $253 million to the widow of a man who died from a heart attack after taking the drug.
“Merck is satisfied with the jury verdict,” said Kenneth Frazier, senior vice president and general counsel of Merck. “There will be other Vioxx trials and we will vigorously defend them one by one over the coming years. Merck acted responsibly – from performing extensive clinical trials comparing Vioxx to NSAIDs or placebo in almost 10,000 patients prior to approval – to monitoring the medicine while it was on the market – to voluntarily withdrawing the medicine when we did.”