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Biotech / Medical : Northfield Lab(NFLD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: erbob who wrote (75)	8/6/1998 10:18:00 AM
From: Frank Wechsler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 148

Two recent articles. Here's the first: biz.yahoo.com Tuesday August 4, 9:29 pm Eastern Time INTERVIEW-Northfield says in partner talks By Kevin Drawbaugh CHICAGO, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Northfield Laboratories Inc. is talking with potential manufacturing partners for its PolyHeme blood substitute, said chief executive Richard DeWoskin on Tuesday in an interview with Reuters. In the meantime, plans by the small, Evanston, Ill.-based company to build a manufacturing plant in nearby Waukegan have been put on hold, DeWoskin said. ''We've been in conversations with large companies that have expressed strong interest in being a manufacturing partner ... a contract-manufacturing kind of arrangement,'' he said. ''Equity hasn't come into it, but it always can. I actually suspected it might at some point. It just hasn't yet. But we're going on with those conversations,'' DeWoskin said. Northfield emerged last month as the only U.S. company still actively pursuing a blood substitute at an advanced level since medical products giant Baxter International Inc. (BAX - news) suspended all clinical trials with its product, HemAssist. Inquiries to Northfield by large companies have increased since the Baxter announcement on July 23, DeWoskin said. ''We always got them, but are more calling now since the Baxter thing? Yes, which is not too surprising,'' he said. Shares in lightly traded Northfield closed Tuesday unchanged at 16-15/16 on Nasdaq. The company has the land, plan and financing to construct a plant in Waukegan. ''We've been actually holding the decision to stick a spade in the ground ourselves,'' DeWoskin said. On the potential partnership talks, he said, ''It's a big company that's a household name ... I've been in this kind of conversation for quite a while. These things don't happen quickly, but it looks like a high-value transaction.'' He added, ''What we had been talking about was finished product -- finished, labeled, packaged product.'' Northfield said in May that it, along with European partner Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. (PNU - news), would seek clearance for Phase III clinical trials in Europe for PolyHeme. Other trials with the product, made from the hemoglobin in unused human donor blood, are under way in the United States. Blood substitutes are meant to ease shortages of donated blood that occur periodically. Substitutes are also viewed as potentially more convenient because they do not need to be typed or cross-matched and can be stored for longer periods and used more quickly than whole blood.