Will Vioxx fallout affect medical device industry?
As physicians and pharmaceutical companies exchanged verbal bullets with each other about drug safety, medical device manufacturers crouched low to avoid getting hit by the crossfire. In the wake of the withdrawal from the market of the painkiller Vioxx in September, some physicians and members of Congress were calling for a better system to monitor the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals after the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them for marketing. A potential problem for medical device manufacturers is that some of the most vocal critics of the current system suggest that regulators revise the way medical devices are monitored as well. The clamor stemmed from a number of well-publicized incidents involving big-name drugs, the most recent being Vioxx, the painkiller from Merck & Co. that has been linked to heart attacks. Two previous incidents were also cited: • The withdrawal from the market in 2001 of the cholesterol drug Baycol (cerivastatin) by Bayer AG over conce
