• November 23, 2011

The pharma giant will pay $950 million for illegally marketing the painkiller, reports Duff Wilson in The New York Times.

"The negotiated settlement, which includes resolution of civil cases, was the latest of a series of fraud cases brought by federal and state prosecutors against major pharmaceutical companies," he writes.

"By the time Vioxx, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999, was pulled off the market in 2004 because evidence showed that it posed a substantial heart risk, about 25 million Americans had taken the drug."