Vytorin--Merck, Why Did You Wait So Long!?!
In some of my earlier posts I have made comments about how, when there is bad news about a drug, for some reason there is a delay in getting this "bad" information out to the public. With the recent release of the ENHANCE study indicating Vytorin really didn't do any better than the old anti-cholesterol standbys like Lipitor and Zocor, questions have been raised about why Merck, the manufacturer, delayed letting this information out for several months. In Pharmalot, one of my favorite blogs addressing information about the drug industry, this issue is addressed head on in a quote by Joel Haye, professor of pharmaceutical economics at USC, who, addressing Merck's actions with regard to disclosing the results of the ENHANCE study said:
"The longer they could keep sales up, the more tens or hundreds of millions of dollars they’d bring in. It took them two years to release the clinical trial results. That gave them huge additional dollars of revenue. In the case of Merck you really have to wonder. This isn’t their first situation along these lines. It’s really starting to hurt their reputation. They seem to get into a stonewalling mode, which is not in the best interests of the company. It needs to promote science above all else.”
When will they get the message that such gamesmanship only hurts their reputation and more importantly, potentially affects the health and welfare of the public.
