Subject: Glaxo, IAF BioChem Will Form a Venture For Marketing Drugs
Date: Published: 11/29/90 (44 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology:
    Glaxo, IAF BioChem
    Will Form a Venture
    For Marketing Drugs

    MONTREAL -- A unit of Glaxo Holdings PLC said it will
 invest 25 million Canadian dollars (US$21.5 million) in IAF
 BioChem International Inc. and form a 50-50 joint venture
 with the company to market certain future IAF products.
    Glaxo said it will buy one million IAF treasury shares now
 at C$12 a share and one million additional treasury shares
 over the next 18 months at C$13.50 a share, or a total C$25
 million.  On the Montreal Exchange, IAF closed yesterday at
 C$13.50 a share, down 25 Canadian cents.
    Glaxo also holds an option to buy just under two million
 additional treasury shares at C$15.60 a share within the next
 two years.  If Glaxo exercises the option it would hold about
 20% of IAF, which has about 15.7 million shares outstanding.
    In February, Glaxo and IAF signed a research agreement to
 develop the Montreal biotechnology and vaccine-making
 concern's BCH-189 compound as a possible treatment for
 acquired immune deficiency syndrome.  Under the new agreement,
 Glaxo and IAF will form an operating company to market
 BCH-189 and related compounds world-wide once sales of any
 BCH-189 products exceed C$100 million.
    Under the previous agreement Glaxo held certain limited
 rights to BCH-189.  Under the new agreement Glaxo holds broad
 rights to all anti-viral and anti-cancer compounds developed
 by IAF. 
    Jacques Lapointe, president of Glaxo's Canadian unit, said
 human trials of BCH-189 are expected to begin in 1991.  He
 said the agreement "clearly demonstrates our confidence in
 IAF BioChem's long-term research capability."  Glaxo, a
 British pharmaceutical concern, has said BCH-189 is its most
 important research program in the AIDS field.

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