Merck loses latest round over Vioxx

Attorney W. Mark Lanier has delivered another stinging blow to Merck's defense of Vioxx, winning a $4.5 million judgment on the drug giant's home turf of New Jersey. Merck now faces up to $22.5 million in punitive damages in the next phase of the trial. For Lanier, the trial marked his second triumph in the first round of lawsuits spurred by revelations of Vioxx's dangers to people with serious risk of cardiovascular events. He won a $253 million award in Texas, which by state law will be reduced to fit under Texas' cap of $26.1 million. Since that first trial, Merck had been on the winning side in several cases. But analysts now expect to see a new round of filings in the wake of the New Jersey case.

- here's the New York Times article