Case Study: Merck & Co

1.0 Introduction
Merck & co also know as Merck Sharp & Dohme, MSD outside the United States and Canada. Merck is known internationally as an American pharmceutical giant. In 1668, in Germany, a drug store had been purchased by Jacob Friedrich Merck fom whom it originates and later on Emanuel Merck had taken over the store in 1816. Merck is not only one of the largest pharmaceutical companies but also has published many series of medical reference books. Merck had always been admired worldwide for their brilliance in delivering the best in their reseach and producing medicines of quality and effectiveness. Merck had contributed in poducing a cure for river blindness disease and donating the drug Mectizan. Mectizan had showed its effectiveness
Pharmaceutical companys usually hired people who were atrractive to be their sales representative. These people would go to doctors and promote the company's product and also by giving out samples, free gifts to build a good relationship with them. They also sponsored many educational events where they invite these physicians and promote their new drugs to them. Merck had spent $422 million to market the new drug Vioxx to the market by marketing it to the doctors and hospitals. Merck and Pfizer as mentioned earlier on are both Pharmaceutical companys and are competitors. In early 2000's Merck and Pfizer had a big competition going on because of both companies trying to prmote their drug. Sales representative from both firms had constantly trying to promote their drugs which were Pfizers Celebrex and Merck's Vioxx, both are a type of COX-2 inhibitor drug. According to The Wall Street Journal it had been stated there that Merck had prepared their sales representative for questions regarding Vioxx such as the safety of the drug espcially when it came to concern of the cardiovascular effects of Vioxx which later and how to tackle such a question. Merck were training their representatives to avoid physicians questions but denied that.Merck said it was taken out of
The drug company's has to carry out clinical trials to prove the safety and effectiveness of the new drug. After the trials were carried out and results are reviewed by the medical experts then only the FDA will be approach by these experts to approve these drugs. The drug would be monitored for safety even after it hits the market. After FDA approves a drug the manufacturer can only market the drug for the purpose of which it was intended for unlike physicians who could prescribe it for any purpose. This would encourage the companies to continue study their approved drugs so that their safety and effectivness would not be proven wrong and the products could actually cure the ailments and health conditions. The FDA was often told to be very slow at approving of new drugs which caused patients to not get new drugs as soon as they expected and drug companies were scared of losing their sales revenue. In 1992, PUDFA which stands for Prescription Drug User Free Act, was passed by the congress, which is a law that every pharmaceutical company has to pay user fees to the FDA to review their new medicines. This helped the FDA receive money to hire more employees and therefore the time took to approve new drugs had shorten from 27 months to 14 months by 2001. There were some reports claiming that the staff at the FDA were constantly under