Schering-Plough's Magic Show!

A good magicians always shows the audience what he wants them to see and leads their eyes away from the solution to the tricks he performs before them.

Schering-Plough has now employed the same trick, by releasing not just the dates, but the exact time of the hour when each Schering executive found out about the unblinded ENHANCE data.

In an SEC filing today Schering-Plough told us some amazing details, never before revealed in any company filing, demonstrating just how concerned the company is about recent allegations of possible insider trading.

Q		When was the Schering-Plough CEO informed of the top line results of ENHANCE?
A		Fred Hassan was informed on January 10, 2008 at 8:00 a.m by Tom Koestler, the head of Schering-Plough Research Institute.
Q		When were the Executive Vice Presidents informed about these top line results?
A		Certain other members of the company’s senior leadership team were informed of the top line results of ENHANCE as part of a pre-determined process.

		Tom Koestler, EVP,		on January 7, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.
		Tom Sabatino, EVP,		on January 10, 2008 at 8:00 a.m.
		Carrie Cox, EVP,		on January 10, 2008 at 8:30 a.m.
		Bob Bertolini, EVP,		on January 10, 2008 at 9:00 a.m.

So why is this a trick?

It is a magical trick, because none of this matters.

What matters is what Carrie Cox and the others key execs knew last year when Carrie sold $28 million of Schering stock.

What matters is not if she followed procedure, but if she had non-public information that the trial was a mess and the images showed no difference among most patients, leading her to believe the trial would negatively impact SGP stock. What matters is if she had information the public didn't have. Or if she was just a very lucky girl, selling at the top.

When she and others found out about the unblinded data doesn't matter at all. But Schering wants us to believe it does, and so it shares this highly unusual, magical, SEC filing.