At least we can measure whether the company is meeting its goals or not.

They're getting rid of unnecessary things and using the money to fund research and development.

Getting larger really does matter. Scale helps because it helps drive greater discounts. The more enrollees you have, the better off you are in terms of costs.

When you start seeing these big, big products coming off patent, there's plenty for most of them to cut. It is quite possible that all of them have plenty more to cut if they want to.

The list is relatively short. There aren't that many companies who could take it.

It's not just the Cleveland Clinic.

For Pfizer, it offers some hope for the future that they can get novel products to market. This proves that they have drug development capability and points to a brighter future 18 months out.

In terms of body language, management seemed a little more defensive to us than usual. Moreover, we find the lack of guidance from a company with the scale and savvy of Pfizer worrisome; it suggests to us that the company doesn't know itself about the future performance of its own internal operations.

It certainly will encourage more people to sue. This is going to be a decade-long process. It's probably going to make Merck reserve more money.