I think we're going to see further consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry. I think that's going to continue into 1999.

There's going to be further consolidation in the insurance industry, and I would say John Hancock is a definite candidate.

We're just not going to sit back and continue to allow the big, powerful pharmaceutical industry to price gouge the senior citizens and working people of our state. People should be able to afford the medicine they need and they should be able to get the best price they can for it.

Here we will see that pharmaceutical companies spend tens of billions of pounds every year trying to change the treatment decisions of doctors: in fact, they spend twice as much on marketing and advertising as they do on the research and development of new drugs. Since we all want doctors to prescribe medicine based on evidence, and evidence is universal, there is only one possible reason for such huge spends: to distort evidence-based practice.

It's the next natural wave of industry consolidation.

There is an inexorable drift toward consolidation in the drug industry.