Merck has agreed to drop some of its objections to plaintiffs lawyers' request for fees in a Vioxx case, but only if it doesn't have to disclose its own legal fees to a judge.
Plaintiffs lawyer Ellen Relkin said Merck dropped some of its objections because it fears a New Jersey judge may publicly disclose what it spent on a trial that ended earlier this year.
Merck lawyer Ted Mayer said the drugmaker's legal fees have no relation to the plaintiffs lawyers' request and that companies always want to be careful when asked to reveal such sensitive information.
Any disclosure of what Merck spent on a case would provide a window into how much the drugmaker's strategy of individually trying each of the roughly 24,000 cases it faces will ultimately cost. So far, Merck has set aside about $1.57 billion to cover legal expenses.
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