Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1392

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Walsh J.
U.S. probing Merck marketing and sales
Bloomberg News 2003 Aug 14

Full text:

Merck & Co., the second-biggest U.S. drugmaker, says it has received a federal subpoena for documents related to the company’s marketing and sales activities.

The Justice Department advised Merck and other drugmakers of an investigation, and recently served the subpoena, according to a regulatory filing.

The drugmaker, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., employs 12,000 in Montgomery County.

Merck said in November that it was working with Justice officials on a probe of marketing and sales in the pharmaceutical industry.

A Merck spokesman did not disclose when the company received the subpoena, and he did not describe the nature of the Justice Department’s request.

“This subpoena seeks substantially the same information,” Merck spokesman Christopher Loder said. “All aspects of our business are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

The disclosure was made in a filing after U.S. markets closed.

Johnson & Johnson said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey is probing marketing practices at the company’s Centocor biotechnology business, which is based in Malvern. Prosecutors asked the company for information and documents, Johnson & Johnson said in an SEC filing. A company spokesman declined to comment on the nature of the investigation.

In November, Schering-Plough Corp. disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts that sought information about its sales and marketing practices.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. was also named in the Massachusetts probe.

Shares of Merck fell $1.11, or 2 percent, to close at $53.42 in New York Stock Exchange trading. They have dropped 5.6 percent this year.

Merck trails Pfizer Inc. in sales among U.S. drug companies.