Word: merck
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...bioinformatics isn't just about genes and proteins anymore. "It's now used to describe how to manage and integrate all information from the drug-discovery process through clinical trials," says Pradip Banerjee, an analyst at consultancy Accenture. That's why drug giant Merck bought Kirkland, Wash.-based Rosetta Inpharmatics, a leader in the field, for $620 million last May. The much touted convergence of biotechnology and computing, it seems, has revolutionized a host of other fields...
...Wall Street, having expected exactly what the Fed delivered, was up before 2:15 p.m. and rose a bit more on the announcement Tuesday before turning listless and closing a bit to the downside on some bad earnings news from Merck. This is a market whose most interest-rate-sensitive sectors have already run up even farther than the wider market since Sept. 21, and to whom Tuesday's 11th cut was decidedly not a surprise. The market may get a marginal boost from the nice warm feeling of a Washington stimulus package - word of a brewing deal Tuesday morning...
Scientists are still debating whether that is the case. When the FDA approved the COX-2 inhibitors, it required Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx, and Pharmacia, which markets Celebrex jointly with Pfizer, to include warnings about potential gastrointestinal problems...
...their part, the drug manufacturers stand firmly behind their products. Merck says its own meta-analysis, which contains data that weren't included in the JAMA study, shows that Vioxx is safe for the heart. Others have focused on the study's admitted limitations, including its direct comparisons of dissimilar patient groups. Says Dr. Michael Friedman, a senior vice president of Pharmacia: "The JAMA article is based on theory, not on solid data...
...Merck and Pharmacia were convinced that their medications had a better side-effect profile and submitted additional data to an FDA advisory panel last February. But the extra information raised new red flags for Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was consulted by the FDA. Nissen noticed what seemed like a high number of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems in the companies' data. Together with Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Debabrata Mukherjee, Nissen decided to look into the matter further...