Merck
ORG
Merck
After a month of testimony, the fourth Vioxx-related personal injury trial ended Monday with well-worn closing arguments from lawyers for Merck and for two men who say the company's drug Vioxx caused their heart attacks. Less than two years after Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market, and eight months after the first Vioxx case reached a verdict, litigation over the drug has settled into something of a groove. Merck's stock, since falling to a nine-year low of $25.50 in October 2005, has risen almost 40 percent, as investors grow more confident that its Vioxx-related liabilities might total only a few billion dollars, instead of the $50 billion or more that some analysts had predicted last fall.