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Biotech / Medical : Pharma News Only (pfe,mrk,wla, sgp, ahp, bmy, lly) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Niman who wrote (1216)	12/9/1998 8:39:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1722

12/09 05:00 Teva <TEVIY.O> weighs selling shares in R&D unit JERUSALEM, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries <TEVI.TA> plans to create a research and development unit and place shares in it with institutional investors, chief financial officer Dan Suesskind said on Wednesday. He said Teva expected to raise about $100 million from a placement to institutional investors in the R&D unit, probably during the first half of 1999. "Most of the shares will be sold to outside investors, like funds," Suesskind told Reuters, adding however that the plan was still in the very early stages. He said Teva would transfer five or six drug R&D projects now under way inside the company, whose carrying costs are rising sharply as they move toward clinical trials. Teva would hold the right of first to refusal to buy back the shares in the R&D company at a gain to other investors based on certain milestones in the drugs' development. "We can't do what Merck<MRK.N> and Pfizer<PFE.N> do, recycling high profit margins into R&D," Suesskind said. Teva earns most of its revenues from generic drugs and is one of the leading players in that segment in the U.S. market. Last year it introduced its first proprietary drug, a multiple sclerosis treatment called Copaxone. Teva had $819 million in sales in the first nine months of 1998 and net earnings of $67.4 million. moneynet.com@NEWS-P2&Index=0&HeadlineURL=../News/NewsHeadlines.asp&DISABLE_FORM=&NAVSVC=News\Company