Despite Pfizer’s best efforts, the lawyers for the family of a woman who died four years ago after taking the Celebrex painkiller have succeeded in convincing a New Jersey state court judge that Fred should be deposed and his videotaped testimony shown in court this fall.

Why does this matter? Well, Fred was ceo at Pharmacia, which Pfizer scooped up in order to gain the profits from the Celebrex painkiller. And Celebrex was a key pill for Pharmacia which, you may recall, furiously battled Merck for dominance of the nascent Cox-2 inhibitor market when both drugmakers nearly simultaneously launched their meds nearly a decade ago.

Back in the day, Fred (who’s now the Schering-Plough ceo) was out there stumping for Celebrex, so his testimony can shed light on steps taken to ensure the painkiller was a success. Vioxx, of course, was later recalled due to heart attacks and strokes, while Pfizer still sells Celebrex, but has been fighting - and more recently settling - numerous lawsuits claiming the same harm.

Another reason this is important: Fred’s deposition will be shown in what will be the first Celebrex trial anywhere. The October 6 event will take place in Superior Court in Atlantic City, where Judge Carol Higbee recently denied Pfizer’s motion to keep the lawyers away from Fred. The lawsuit, by the way, was brought by the family of Constance Grutka, who had been taking Celebrex for two years and was 57 when she died of a heart attack.

One of the family’s attorneys, Ellen Relkin, wrote us to say that a medical examiner, who performed the autopsy, as well as other medical experts, determiend that Celebrex contributed to the heart attack. “Pfizer, the manufacturer of Celebrex, and its predecessors had evidence from early clinical trials that Celebrex increased the risk of heart attack.

“Despite that evidence, Pfizer failed to warn Mrs. Grutka and her doctors, and instead marketed Celebrex as being safe for the heart, in order to compete with, Merck’s Vioxx, a drug in the same class of painkillers. A cardiovascular “black box” warning is now in the Celebrex label, first placed there by Pfizer, one year after Mrs. Grutka’s death.”

And Pfizer spokesman Chris Loder sent us this statement: “While we have great sympathy for the Grutka family, we believe that Celebrex did not cause the conditions that led to Mrs. Grutka’s death, and the company has acted responsibly with respect to this medicine. The safety of Celebrex was rigorously studied in clinical trials involving more than 50,000 patients worldwide, and information about its benefits and risks has been provided properly to FDA, doctors and patients. Since 1999, Celebrex has been a safe and effective pain relief option for millions of patients, many of whom did not find relief with other treatment therapies.”