Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Remember those Vytorin commercials with the split screen, comparing people to food? Aunt Barbara on the left and some tacos on the right? Mildly entertaining though they were, those ads underscore a big problem with the promotion of new pharmaceuticals. Evidence suggests that Vytorin’s manufacturers, Merck and Schering-Plough, promoted and sold the anti-cholesterol drug for nearly 2 years despite known clinical trial results that strongly suggested Vytorin to be no more effective than cheap, generic statin drugs.

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For a while it seemed as if sales of Merck’s blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug Vytorin would plummet into oblivion. Unfavorable and botched ENHANCE trial results, harrowing SEAS trial results, lawsuits filed on behalf of individuals and government, congressional inquiries, and so on plagued Merck and co-creator Schering-Plough because it looked as if Vytorin was at best a dud and at worst a cancer-inducing danger.

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