Vytoringate Redux: Congress Fires Off More Letters [View All]

[Celebration]

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/02/11/vytoringate-redux-congress-fires-off-more-letters/

Congress, Merck and Schering-Plough are becoming pen pals.

John Dingell and Bart Stupak, leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, have sent off some new notes to the two companies about that controversial Enhance trial of their cholesterol drug Vytorin.

In one letter, they ask about some posts on Cafe Pharma, a Web site frequented by drug reps, which seem to indicate some people knew the results of the failed study as long ago as March 13, 2007. (For more on those posts, check out the BrandweekNRX blog. The March 13 message said: “have a buddy at . He says that the study is a bust.”)

“These Web site entries are obviously troubling and raise again the question of whether anyone within Merck or Schering-Plough knew the results of the Enhance trial prior to the official release of data in the January 14, 2008, press release,” the congressmen write.

They also sent a note to Cafe Pharma’s webmaster and the chief executive of SoftLayer Technologies, requesting information on the identities of those who wrote the posts in question.