Subject: SmithKline Bid For Test Firm Tops Corning's
Date: Published: 3/24/88 66 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   SmithKline Bid
   For Test Firm
   Tops Corning's
    ---
   International Clinical Labs
   Had Agreed to Accept
   Glass Concern's Offer
    ---
   By Frank Allen
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   PHILADELPHIA -- SmithKline Beckman Corp. made a surprise
bid to acquire International Clinical Laboratories Inc. for
$32 a share, or $320 million, despite the laboratory-testing
concern's prior agreement to be purchased for $260 million by
Corning Glass Works.
   SmithKline made its offer in an advertisement appearing in
today's editions of The Wall Street Journal.  Company
officials who planned the bid were said to be traveling last
night and weren't available to comment on SmithKline's
reasons for the move.  Officials at International Clinical
 also couldn't be reached for comment, and a spokesman for
Corning Glass declined to comment.
   For both SmithKline and Corning, Nashville, Tenn.-based
International Clinical is an attractive prize.  Its fastest
growth areas are insurance testing -- for detection of
acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS -- and corporate
drug testing.
   Within the past 18 months, SmithKline's own drug-testing
operations have grown rapidly, prompted in part by the drug
scandals of professional and college athletic teams.  The
Philadelphia-based pharmaceuticals and health-products
concern wants to become a national leader in the
drug-detection and insurance-testing fields.
   Similarly, the acquisition of International Clinical would
significantly boost Corning's market presence, doubling the
size and expanding the territory of the Corning, N. Y. -based
company's Metpath laboratory operations, which provide
medical testing for physicians.
   The Metpath unit operates 13 clinical-testing labs,
primarily in the Northeast.  International Clinical, which
operates 13 labs on the West Coast and in the South, had net
income of $4.8 million on sales of $205.5 million for the
fiscal year ended Aug. 31.
   SmithKline's offer, scheduled to expire at 12:  01 a.m.  EDT
on April 21 unless extended, is contingent upon the tendering
of at least a majority of International Clinical's 10 million
common shares and share equivalents outstanding.  Those
equivalents include International Clinical's 10.5%
convertible debentures due 1997 and its 7.25% convertible
debentures due 2011.
   International Clinical's fastest growth areas are
insurance testing -- which is performed to test for the
presence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS -- 
and corporate drug testing.

[23 lines irrelevant to AIDS have been removed. -- sysop]

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