Subject: Abbott Labs to Swap Blood-Product Rights For Stake in a Firm
Date: Published: 10/12/92 (43 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology:
    Abbott Labs to Swap
    Blood-Product Rights
    For Stake in a Firm

    NORTH CHICAGO, Ill.  -- Abbott Laboratories plans to divest itself
 of an experimental -- and controversial -- blood product thought to
 hold promise in fighting AIDS, by swapping it to North American
 Biologicals Inc. for stock.
    The maker of health-care products will get a two-million-share,
 or 16%, stake in North American, a plasma provider based in Miami.
 It will also shed a product that has generated substantial negative
 publicity for the company.
    When the deal closes, North American will immediately receive
 rights to a proprietary Abbott product known as hepatitis B immune
 globulin, or H-BIG, which is used to prevent people exposed to
 hepatitis B from coming down with the disease.  Sales of H-BIG
 totaled about $5 million last year.
    The Miami concern also gets the exclusive right to acquire
 Abbott's experimental HIV immune globulin, or HIVIG, once certain
 liability matters are cleared up.
    It's the latter product, derived from the blood of people
 infected with the AIDS virus, that has proven controversial for
 Abbott.  It's thought to hold potential, among other things, as a
 means of providing protection to unborn or newborn infants whose
 mothers are HIV positive.  But Abbott has withheld approval of a test
 National Institutes of Health researchers want to conduct, until it
 gets 100% indemnification against all product liability.
    AIDS activists have condemned the company's stance as overly
 cautious, and have conducted anti-Abbott protests at places like the
 Pacific Stock Exchange.
    Abbott's transfer of the HIVIG product to North American hinges
 on "Abbott's receiving satisfactory immunity from civil lawsuits for
 clinical and commercial uses" of the product, North American said;
 Abbott officials couldn't be reached for elaboration.

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