Prepared Remarks
Meanwhile, our MK-8931 program a small molecule inhibitor of beta-secretase for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease continues to enroll patients in advance of the safety review, which we believe will complete at the very end of this year.
Satisfactory completion of this review will permit expansion of this study for formal efficacy testing. In this pivotal study, patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease will be evaluated for the effect of MK-8931 on a cognitive performance and activities of daily living following 78 weeks of treatment as compared to placebo.
Q&A Session:
on 8931, the safety readout, will that be at a clinical meeting CTAB, for example, in November or would you expect that at a press release? Would there be any data coming out on the base inhibitor in the second half?
Roger M. Perlmutter - EVP and President of Merck Research Laboratories: Tony, with respect to 8931, the structure of the program is that we have an initial phase in which we analyze – as I said, we enroll and analyze a set of patients over a three-month period, each patient exposed for three months in order to look at dose ranging and to look at safety and tolerability. Based on those results, we then proceed into our large Phase III study. We believe that we will complete that safety running period, including the three months' drug exposure by the end of this year. Our hope and belief, of course, is that safety and tolerability will be expected and we'll move on into the large efficacy portion of the trial. If there were any problem, of course, we'd let you know, and if we proceed into, we’ll let you know about that as well. Ultimately, those data will be presented in the scientific meeting. So you can expect to hear about it at the beginning of 2014.