Biotech Values

[BTH]

Here you go:

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/36157108-merck-kgaa-adr-q4-2011.aspx

Annalisa Jenkins - Global Head of Drug Development & Medical: Thank you. Thanks for question, Richard. What I'd like to do is address the two different parts of your question together and just note that this was actually second of two planned interims which were pre-specified in the original statistical analysis plan as approved by the agencies and this pre-specified interim as is often the case in these very long studies, was primarily put in place when we had accrued 75% of the pre-planned end points to ensure that in the spirit of protecting patients, we could stop if we saw that there would be no expected ability to show benefits or to reach the primary endpoints or if there was overwhelming evidence at this stage in the study of an efficacy benefit. So, how I would advise you to interpret our announcement; the study will continue as planned to its completion, and if you remember this is a study that is event driven. We will go to accrual of 100% of events and we've already stated today that we expect that to be – that that events be reached towards the end of this year and then subsequently post data analysis we'll see the data early next year. So, hopefully that addresses your question in that this was an interim, it was pre-specified, it allowed us to stop the overwhelming efficacy or no expectation of benefit. The committee reviewed the data, they saw no safety issues and they advised us that we should continue?