On May 21, 1999, Merck was granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market rofecoxib (Vioxx). On September 30, 2004, after more than 80 million patients had taken this medicine and annual sales had topped $2.5 billion, the company withdrew the drug because of an excess risk of myocardial infarctions and strokes. This represents the largest prescription-drug withdrawal in hi...

HE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY has as its objective the discovery of important new medicines and vaccines to prevent and alleviate diseases and to improve health and the quality of life. Merck has been doing that successfully since 1933, when George W. Merck opened the first laboratory in Rahway, New Jersey. Through the efforts of its research scientists, the company has contributed drugs and vacci...

Disclosure: Prof Simon Travis has been an advisor to, in receipt of educational or research grants from, or an invited lecturer for AbbVie, Amgen, Asahi, Biogen, Boehringer Ingelheim, BMS, Cosmo, Elan, Ferring, FPRT Bio, Genentech/Roche, Genzyme, Glenmark, GW Pharmaceuticals, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Ocera, Pfizer, Receptos, Shire, Santarus, SigmoidPharma, Synthon, Takeda, Tillotts...

This paper reports the results of a study designed in close collaboration with Merck-Medco to identify key barriers to the success of their customer relationship management. To identify the key factors, we first used focus groups of principle users of the system to brainstorm and generate a list of scenarios and issues. A team of managers, supervisors and customer service representatives then c...