A U.S. judge has approved a legal settlement that requires Merck & Co.'s (MRK) drug research arm to inform the company's board of directors of delays in reporting clinical trial results.The settlement ends part of the litigation that followed the 2008 release of results of the "Enhance" clinical trial of Merck's cholesterol drug Vytorin, which raised questions about its efficacy, nearly two years after the study was completed in 2006. The data caused Vytorin sales to decline.Merck and its cholesterol-drug partner at the time, Schering-Plough, were accused of delaying the release of the Enhance trial results to protect solid sales growth for Vytorin and a related drug, Zetia. The companies, which merged in 2009, said the delay was needed to analyze issues with data quality.
