Merck

Led by the health insurance reform law, a flurry of drug and food recalls, key medical breakthroughs and plenty of layoffs and lawsuits, 2010 proved to be an exciting -- if not always positive -- year. Here's our rundown of the biggest health care stories.

German pharmaceutical and chemical company Merck KGaA will pay $280 million to settle a U.S. Department of Justice claim brought against a former subsidiary, Dey Pharma, regarding Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. This is the fourth such settlement this month alone.

Stocks closed modestly mixed on light volume Friday in the last full trading week of the year, which marked the third week in a row of overall gains. While drugmakers Pfizer and Merck put a damper on the Dow, robust earnings from Oracle and Research In Motion helped lift tech stocks.

If the extension of the Bush tax cuts triggers a market rally, as many expect, investors will likely rush in. But caution is advised: High prices can also mean high risk. Here are some tips from Alan Lancz, director of research at LanczGlobal.com, on how investors can avoid getting burned.

If you get the feeling Johnson & Johnson is recalling products every day, you wouldn't be that far from the truth. Now it's dragging Merck with it as the two announced a recall of 12 over-the-counter Mylanta heartburn medicine liquid products as well as Alternagel liquid antacid to update product labeling.

Kenneth Frazier will be the new CEO of the pharmaceutical and health care giant, succeeding Richard Clark in January 2011.

Richard Branson is pushing beyond the revenue curve with a new iPad magazine he plans to show to the public next week. The British mogul bills it as a as a paperless "revolutionary multimedia" publication. First word of the project -- dubbed, simply, Project -- leaked out in July, but the effort has been kept under tight wraps.