The legal victory represents a significant reduction in the risk profile of the company. The company's fending off of this major threat is likely to lift sentiment for the entire large-cap pharmaceutical group through the remainder of 2005.

They got slammed. The credibility of this company has been damaged and will continue to be so for some time until they can deliver.

This is really bad. It is such a blatant decision that says Merck did not do the right thing about protecting patients.

As potential patients, we would want these companies to make incremental improvements. Without it, we would end up only with first-in-class products that are not as good as they could be.

A new warning (on suicidal thoughts) could further add to pressure on the product.

A negative outcome in this trial is more magnified than a positive one.

The squeeze is coming, ... With this number of cases and these types of awards, the stability of the company is at risk.

Drug companies have done a poor job managing public relations and they know this. In many cases, the individual drug companies have tried to set examples where they can. This is one area where Bristol has tried to set an example.

We believe this decision is only worth $1 to $2 in upside to Merck, as this case was known to be relatively weak,

Merck has a precedent of announcing head count reductions and then coming back to the table and cutting even further.