Is this Off Topic, or is it the central topic? Merck management has little time to deal with minor problems, such as sick people, because the top levels of the company are so busy with lawsuits and corporate games. They are not asking, “What can we do for Parkinson’s people?” They are asking, “Did we just blow $2,600,000,000 because the shareholders and legal people figured out that we lied when we pretended that Schering was buying Merck when actually Merck was buying Schering and absurdly false legal games were played to rip off Johnson & Johnson?” and even more important: if the deal for this drug dies because of the dishonesty towards J&J, what will happen to the $51,000,000 severence cheque that CEO Fred Hassan cashed in for himself for doing the fake deal?”
These people have no time and no reason to worry about some cheap pill called “sinemet”.. Their attention is always focused somewhere else.
And there is a photocopy machine that keeps on going. Such a hassle when the internet characters get on their case. Somehow information keeps leaking out.

How Merck Bet $2.6B on a Technicality
By Jim Edwards | September 7, 2010 BNet Placebo Effect

Up to $2.6 billion of Merck (MRK)’s revenue hangs on a technicality in a legal document, and it could all be washed away by the end of September…., Merck disclosed today. …The technicality revolves around Merck’s deal with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) which allows Merck to sell Remicade,…
Originally, J&J and Schering-Plough made a deal which gave Schering rights to sell Remicade. That deal stated that if Schering ever experienced a “change of control” then it could be cancelled ….
Normally, when one company buys another, the company being bought undergoes a “change of control.” In the Merck-Schering acquisition, however, both companies’ lawyers performed a set of legal tricks to make it look like Schering was actually buying Merck and then renaming itself “Merck.” The company even reissued new Merck stock in place of old Merck stock — even though the two stocks are identical instruments from a financial point of view, and even have the same stock symbol, MRK. The maneuvering was clearly a figleaf, as Schering CEO Fred Hassan cashed out a staggering $50 million severance payment based in large part on a change-of-control provision that triggered such payments….
…. Merck must hope that the arbitrator — who has much more leeway than a judge and can rule based on technicalities or merits — will abandon common sense and decide that even though the Remicade deal waddles and quacks like a duck, it is not a duck per se.
That’s an extraordinary thing upon which to bet $2.6 billion.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-busine...tag=nl.rSINGLE