Schering-Plough Launches Productivity Transformation Program To Confront New Challenges

$1.5 Billion Annualized Savings Target
$500 million in Synergies from OBS Acquisition Rolled into New Target

KENILWORTH, N.J., April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) announced today a major new
Productivity Transformation Program (PTP) to reduce and avoid costs and
increase productivity to generate a total of $1.5 billion in targeted
annual savings and synergies.

The targeted savings represent approximately 10% of the combined
company's full year 2007 estimated cost base, including Organon BioSciences
(OBS) and manufacturing. The previously announced integration synergy
targets of $500 million from the Company's November 2007 acquisition of
Organon BioSciences of the Netherlands will be rolled into PTP.

The program responds to dramatically intensifying pressures on the
pharmaceutical industry, especially new pressures in the United States, and
also to the confusion in the U.S. market around cholesterol management that
impacts the products of the Merck/Schering-Plough joint venture, ZETIA and
VYTORIN.

While the details of the implementation program are being developed, at
least $1.25 billion -or more than 80% - of the planned savings are targeted
to be accomplished by the end of 2010, with the balance achieved by 2012,
reflecting the longer timelines for implementing such actions effectively
and prudently in the global supply chain.

"Savings and productivity improvements will be realized across the
company and around the world. No area will be exempt," said Fred Hassan,
chairman and CEO. "Our first actions will be to execute reductions in high
overhead cost areas, beginning with reductions in higher management levels
in the company's headquarters and elsewhere. A major focus will be the
U.S., where the most intense new pressures on our industry and our company
are centered."

Added Hassan: "We will be executing this cost saving, productivity
enhancing program with care and prudence. We will not engage in
across-the-board cost cutting. We will avoid unwise short term actions. We
will be focused on the same goal that has driven our company over the past
nearly five years of my tenure as CEO: driving high performance for the
long term."



PTP will include the following actions:

-- Further elimination and simplification of management layers.

-- Consolidation of middle management functions and increased use of
shared staff support and shared services.

-- Execution of further reductions in travel and other costs.

-- Review and re-sizing of investments, including
- sales and marketing,
- the R&D cost base; including strategic reductions in the project
portfolio while prioritizing high-potential projects such as the
phase III Thrombin Receptor Antagonist (TRA) cardiovascular
compound.

-- Simplification of product lines - especially in the combined Animal
Health Business.

-- Reduction of the number of plants globally; creation of more focused
and high-efficiency plants by 2012.

-- Process improvement in all parts of the company to improve
efficiencies.


The PTP will be overseen by a senior management team led by Hassan.
The company will provide progress updates at appropriate intervals. "Through strong management and strong people we have been executing
with excellence on our 6-8 year Action Agenda which we launched in 2003. We
have built depth and strength across our company," said Hassan. "The recent
OBS acquisition was a pivotal action in the current Build the Base phase of
that agenda. One of our most important achievements is that we now have
perhaps the most impressive late-stage pipeline in our peer group --
including cutting edge projects as TRA for deadly blood clots, and
sugammadex in anesthesiology."

However, said Hassan, "hard new realities are requiring the hard new
actions" that are being announced today. "The reality is that we face today
a new political and overall environment in the U.S. that is increasingly
discouraging pharmaceutical innovation."

"An example of these intense overall new pressures," said Hassan, "has
been the confusion in the cholesterol market largely caused by the
overreaction to conflicting results of the relatively small ENHANCE
clinical trial, involving VYTORIN. This confusion, in the absence of an
open and balanced scientific discussion of this clinical trial, have caused
an unwarranted concern among millions of patients who need to get to their
cholesterol goals," he said. "This episode has been a case study of the
impact of the hard new realities."

"We need to improve the environment for pharmaceutical innovation in
the U.S.," said Hassan, "because patients need new treatments for unmet
medical needs such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, and cancer. And
our country needs to foster the innovation-based pharmaceutical industry,
because our biomedical research is still pre-eminent compared to other
countries."

Meantime, said Hassan, "We are taking the tough actions that are needed
to respond to a tough situation. The challenge we are addressing today is
much more manageable than the one that we faced when I took on the
leadership of Schering-Plough in 2003. We powered through that challenge.
We are determined to power through this one."

Conference Call and Webcast

Schering-Plough will conduct a conference call today at 5:45 p.m. (EDT)
to review the Productivity Transformation Program. To listen live to the
call, dial 1-877-565-9664 or 1-706-634-5003 and enter conference ID
#42256941. A replay of the call will be available beginning later today
through 5 p.m. on May 2. To listen to the replay, dial 1-800-642-1687 or
1-706-645-9291 and enter the conference ID #42256941. A live audio webcast
of the conference call also will be available by going to the Investor
Relations section of the Schering-Plough corporate Web site,
http://www.schering-plough.com, and clicking on the
"Presentations/Webcasts" link. A replay of the webcast will be available
starting on Apr. 3 through 5 p.m. on May 2.

DISCLOSURE NOTICE: The information in this press release, the comments
of Schering-Plough officers during the teleconference/webcast on Apr. 2,
2008, beginning at 5:45 p.m. (EDT), and other written reports and oral
statements made from time to time by the company may contain
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements do not relate
strictly to historical or current facts and are based on current
expectations or forecasts of future events. You can identify these
forward-looking statements by their use of words such as "anticipate,"
"believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "project," "intend,"
"plan," "potential," "will," and other similar words and terms. In
particular, forward-looking statements include statements relating to the
company's plans; its strategies; its progress under the Action Agenda and
anticipated timing regarding future performance of the Action Agenda;
business prospects; anticipated growth; expected synergies related to the
Productivity Transformation Program and the Organon BioSciences
acquisition; prospective products or product approvals; trends in
performance; anticipated timing of clinical trials and its impact on R&D
spending; anticipated exclusivity periods; actions to enhance clinical,
R&D, manufacturing and post- marketing systems; and the potential of
certain products including VYTORIN and ZETIA and trending in the
cholesterol market. Actual results may vary materially from the company's
forward-looking statements, and there are no guarantees about the
performance of Schering-Plough stock or Schering-Plough's business.
Schering-Plough does not assume the obligation to update any
forward-looking statement. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause
results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, including,
among other uncertainties, market viability of the company's (and the
cholesterol joint venture's) marketed and pipeline products; market forces;
economic factors such as interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations; the
outcome of contingencies such as litigation and investigations including
litigation and investigations relating to the ENHANCE clinical trial;
product availability; patent and other intellectual property protection;
current and future branded, generic or over-the-counter competition; the
regulatory process (including product approvals, labeling and
post-marketing actions); scientific developments relating to marketed
products or pipeline projects; and media and societal reaction to such
developments. For further details of these and other risks and
uncertainties that may impact forward-looking statements, see
Schering-Plough's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including
Part I, Item 1A of the company's 10-KA filed March 3, 2008.

Schering-Plough is an innovation-driven, science-centered global health
care company. Through its own biopharmaceutical research and collaborations
with partners, Schering-Plough creates therapies that help save and improve
lives around the world. The company applies its research-and-development
platform to human prescription and consumer products as well as to animal
health products. In November 2007, Schering-Plough acquired Organon
BioSciences, with its Organon human health and Intervet animal health
businesses, marking a pivotal step in the company's ongoing transformation.
Schering-Plough's vision is to "Earn Trust, Every Day" with the doctors,
patients, customers and other stakeholders served by its approximately
50,000 people around the world. The company is based in Kenilworth, N.J.,
and its Web site is http://www.schering-plough.com.





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Via: Healthcare