Quintiles Transnational to Provide $100 Mln to Healtheon/WebMD
Durham, North Carolina, March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Quintiles Transnational Corp., which runs contract clinical trials for drugmakers, said it will provide up to $100 million to Healtheon/WebMD Corp. over the next year and a half.
The money will be used by Healtheon/WebMD to develop Internet products and services in several areas, including drug development and direct-to-consumer information delivery, Durham, North Carolina-based Quintiles said.
The agreement is subject to the completion of Santa Clara, California-based Healtheon/WebMD's purchase of Quintiles's Envoy electronic claims-processing unit. The sale, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter.
Quintiles also said it plans a restructuring charge of about $55 million in the first quarter. The restructuring is expected to result in annual savings of $40 million to $55 million, of which $30 million to $35 million will be realized this year.
The company also said it anticipates ``significantly' lower- than-expected earnings per share for the first half of the year. Quintiles is expected to earn 32 cents a share in the first quarter, and 35 cents a share in second quarter, the average estimates of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
The shares of Quintiles, which had revenue of $1.83 billion last year, fell 3/4 to 23 9/16. Healtheon/WebMD rose 1 3/4 to 41 3/4. Quintiles made the announcements after the close of regular U.S. trading.
Mar/08/2000 19:30 |
