Merck market

Merck marketed Vioxx heavily to doctors and spent more than 100 miUion a year on direct-to-the-consumer advertising using popular athletes including Dorothy Hamill and Bruce Jenner. In September 2001, the FDA sent Merck a letter warning the company to stop misleading doctors about Vioxx s effect on the cardiovascular system. 

Welan is produced by 2is Pilcaligenes species (ATCC-31555) by aerobic fermentation, and marketed under the trade name BIOZAN (Merck and Co., Inc.) early reports also referred to it as S-130 (229). The polymer is stmcturaUy similar to geUan, sharing the same backbone sequence. It has an additional side group of an a-L-rhamnopyranosyl or an a-L-maimopyranosyl (Man ) unit linked (1— 3) to a P-D-glucopyranosyl unit in the backbone of the polymer ... 

The biotin market is divided between agricultural and human use, with —90% of biotin used in the animal health care market and —10% for the human nutritional market. The major producers of biotin are Hoffmann-La Roche, Lon2a, E. Merck-Darmstadt, Rhc ne-Poulenc, Sumitomo Pharmaceutical, E. Sung, and Tanabe Seiyaku (100). Worldwide production of biotin in 1994 was approximately 60 metric tons. The Hst price for pure biotin in 1995 was — 7.00/g whereas, the Hst price for technical feed-grade biotin was — 5.50/g. Biotin is used in various pharmaceutical, food, and special dietary products, including multivitamin preparations in Hquid, tablet, capsule, or powder forms. One of the commercially available products of i7-biotin is Britrit-1, which is a 1% biotin trituration used in food premixes. 

French firms, Rhc ne-Poulenc and, to a lesser extent, Roussel-Uclaf. Smaller amounts are produced in Japan by Nippon Petrochemical, in Hungary by Medimpex-Richter, and by minor producers in several other countries. Barber manufacturers, particularly Merck (U.S.) and Glaxo (U.K.), have exited the market. Although estimates vary, it appears that ca 10,000 kg/yr of vitamin is produced (1). 

However, despite their practical and societal value, vaccines remain only a small component of the global pharmaceutical market ( 5 billion out of 350 billion sales in 2000). The vaccine market is dominated by just four large manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis Pasteur, Wyeth, and Merck Co. There is, however, a strong resurgence of interest in vaccines, with a growing cluster of small vaccine companies and biotech hrms, led by Chiron. 

Currently, Bristol-Myers Squibb is marketing Efavirenz under their brand name of Sustiva and Merck under the brand name of Stocrin . 

If sedatives, barbiturates, antipsychotic drugs, stimulants, opiates and thyroid medications all outperform inert placebos in the treatment of depression, does this mean that any active drug can function as an antidepressant Apparently not. In September 1998 the pharmaceutical company Merck announced the discovery of a novel antidepressant with a completely different mode of action than other medications for depression. This new drug, which they later marketed under the trade name Emend for the prevention of nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, seemed to show considerable promise as an antidepressant in... 

The FDA approved this selective cyclooxigenase (COX)-2 inhibitor (Vioxx) for the treatment of pain and inflammation in 1999. This NSAID demonstrated to have a lower risk of side effects such as gastrointestinal ulcers and bleeding than nonse-lective COX inhibitors, for example, ibuprofen. In 2004, a long-term study of Vioxx in patients at increased risk of colon polyps was halted because of an increased cardiovascular risk (heart attack, stroke) in the rofecoxib group. Subsequently, Merck withdrew the drug from the world market at the end of September 2004 [46]. 

Baycol (cerivastatin, sold as Lipobay in Europe, Bayer) is a statin, a class of cholesterol-lower drugs. Statins are the most prescribed drugs in the United States, with more than 12 million people taking them, and more than 700,000 people in the United States taking cerivastatin. It received marketing approval on June 26, 1997 and was voluntarily removed from the market on August 8, 2001 because of its link to 100 deaths and several injuries from potentially the muscle disease rhabdomyolysis. The other statins — lovas-tatin (Mevacor Merck) pravastatin (Pravachol Bristol-Myers Squibb) simvastatin (Zocor Merck) fluvastatin (Lescol Novartis) atorvastatin (Lipitor Parke-Davis) rosuvastatin... 

Subsequently, a second, closely related molecule—lovastatin—was discovered by scientists at Merck in the United States in another fungal fermentation broth and by Sankyo in Japan. Lovastatin, marketed as Mevacor in the United States, proved both safe and efficacious for the intended nse and was the first statin to be approved for human use. Several others, some mentioned above, followed. The history of discovery and development of HMGR inhibitors has been pnUed together by Jonathan Tobert, who led the lovastatin and simvastatin clinical development effort at Merck. ... 

The use of natural products as medicine has invoked the isolation of active compounds the first commercial pure natural product introduced for therapeutic use is generally considered to be the narcotic morphine (1), marketed by Merck in 1826, and the first semi-synthetic pure dmg aspirin (2), based on a natural product salicin (3) isolated from Salix alba, was introduced by Bayer in 1899. This success subsequently led to the isolation of early dmgs such as cocaine, codeine, digitoxin (4), quinine (5), and pilocarpine (6), of which some are still in use. ... 

It was over 20 years ago, but I can still remember vividly my first exposure to pharmaceutical marketing. I had joined Merck Sharp Dohme one week earlier and as my boss was away, I was sent to represent the medical group at a planning meeting for the launch of a new non-steroidal. I had spent part of my hospital training in rheumatology and was confident that I could hold my own at the meeting. 

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) was synthesized in 1912 and patented in 1914 by Merck as an appetite suppressant, but was never marketed (Figure 9.1). Since the middle 1980s, MDMA, which is primarily known as ecstasy, has become a popular drug at raves. The final product often contains other stimulants such as caffeine or cocaine. Users of ecstasy report enhanced communication and empathy with others. A 2002... 

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