Dozens of Irish people who were prescribed the arthritis drug Vioxx before it was withdrawn last September will have "strong" legal cases against the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co, a solicitor representing them has claimed.
However, Raymond Bradley said yesterday that it was likely to be two or three years before the first Irish cases against the company are heard in a US court.
On Friday a jury in a Texas court found Merck & Co negligent in the death of a man taking the painkiller and awarded his widow $253 million (€211 million).
Vioxx was withdrawn voluntarily by the company from worldwide markets last September after it emerged during a trial of the drug - to see if it would also prevent the development of colon cancer - that prolonged use beyond 18 months could increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
At the time the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) said it was surprised by the speed of the decision by Merck & Co to withdraw the drug.
The IMB had had 85 reports of adverse reactions to Vioxx since it was licensed in the Republic in 1999 and just eight of these were "cardiovascular type adverse effects". These were not deaths, a spokeswoman stressed.
It is not known how many Irish people were taking the drug before its withdrawal. However, figures provided by the General Medical Services (Payments) Board show it was prescribed 117,428 times to medical-card patients alone in 2003. Some of these would be repeat prescriptions.
Mr Bradley of Malcolmson Law said he had hundreds of inquiries from people thinking about taking action against Merck & Co, the parent company of Merck Sharp & Dohme Ireland (Human Health) Ltd, which employs 570 people in Dublin and Co Tipperary. Vioxx was not manufactured in Ireland.
"We have had hundreds of inquiries . . . We reckon that there are probably dozens of cases that are strong cases in terms of liability issues," he told RTÉ Radio 1's This Week programme.
He said the Irish cases would be taken as part of a class action in the US. There are believed to be thousands of cases pending against the company worldwide and after Friday's verdict, shares in Merck plummeted by nearly 8 per cent. The media flurry surrounding a raft of potential new claims at the weekend is likely to put the stock under further pressure today.
In the Texas case, Carol Ernst argued that Vioxx had caused her husband, Robert Ernst, a 59-year-old marathon runner, to die of a heart attack in 2001. He had no history of heart problems and was taking Vioxx for arthritis in his wrist. Merck disputed the accusation, saying he died of irregular heartbeat and clogged arteries, but the 12-member jury awarded $24 million to Ms Ernst for mental anguish and loss of companionship and $229 million in punitive damages.
Merck attorney Jonathan Skidmore said the company would appeal the decision, but estimated that even if it is upheld, the punitive damages would be trimmed to less than $2 million. Texas law limits punitive awards to two times economic damage - in this case $450,000 - plus up to another $750,000. There is no financial limit for loss of companionship and mental anguish.
Mr Bradley said the 85 complaints to the IMB was just "the tip of the iceberg" and claims were likely to increase. "Many people have had cardiac problems who were elderly, who didn't realise or wouldn't have realised until now that those problems could have been caused by a drug that was prescribed to them."