2005 was a pivotal year for Schering-Plough. We began our Turnaround phase. We achieved our goal of growing revenues and earnings.

We felt comfortable that the ultimate goal (of getting the records released) would still be achieved. We don't believe that there was a material change in the process.

It's such a hopeful, almost utopian word, that word "phase." As if any minute, "we" would suffer some sort of Joad overload, come to "our" senses, and for heaven's sake, do something about our godforsaken shoes. But the book phase never ended. The book phase would bloom and grow into a whole series of seasonal affiliations including our communist phase, our beatnik phase, our vegetarian phase, and the three-year period known as Please Don't Talk to Me. Now that we are finishing up the third decade of the book phase, we ask ourselves if we have changed. Sure, we still dress in the bruise palette of gray, black, and blue, and we still haven't gotten around to piercing our ears. But we wear lipstick now, we own high-heeled shoes. Concessions have been made.

If I get to be a legend, I've achieved my goal.

If our air forces are never used, they have achieved their finest goal.

We are building a special capability at Schering-Plough to respond to these and other challenges with innovation, speed and flexibility. We aspire to continue being the company delivering the most positive change of any in our peer group, as we work to deliver our Turnaround and advance our six- to eight-year Action Agenda for transformational change.