Affordability is critical so that patients have access to medicines. At the same time, it's also important that we have the kind of incentives that allow us to do the kinds of studies that we need to do to go after these diseases like Alzheimer's.

I think that size is not the key to innovation. Scale doesn't confirm an innovation advantage.

My job is to make sure that 10 and 15 years from now, people aren't going to say, 'Oh, do you remember Merck?'

I do worry that as we try to fix this long-term debt and deficit situation that we don't destroy the market incentives for biomedical research. What I fear is the government using its considerable clout to say, 'Here's the price we're setting for your medicines.'