Where is Novartis?, page-536

All logical possibilities which I agree with as we don't know the terms of the contract and if that allows them to continually delay a final decision (which so far appears to be he case). And Novartis should be trying to pull off all those risk mitigating options for their shareholders, if they legally can or don't mind risking a poor outcome if they also want in the future to negotiate a CHF deal.

The only proviso is that SI, who is closer to the deal than anyone else, has publicly stated a couple of times that he is expecting a closing shortly. So, SI, not being a dummy or new to the game of big Pharma negotiations, has either misread the situation entirely or the deal close is imminent (ie within 3 weeks, otherwise we have hit 'a few months' since he declared 'a few weeks').