Quintiles Inc. announced Monday that it has filed with theSecurities and Exchange Commission for the registration of 2.3million shares of common stock in connection with an initialpublic offering of shares at a proposed price of $19 to $21 each.

The contract research organization hopes to raise as much as$48.3 million in gross proceeds from the offering, which isbeing managed by an underwriting group led by MorganStanley & Co. Inc. and Hambrecht & Quist Inc. The registrationincludes a 300,000-share underwriter's overallotment option.The company has proposed trading under the NASDAQ symbolQTRN.

Following the offering, Quintiles will have 9.2 million shares ofstock outstanding. It had $9.2 million in cash and equivalentsas of Dec. 31. The company's last financing took place in July1993, when it raised $11 million through the private placementof 636,941 shares of common stock at $17.27 each. Pastinvestors in Quintiles include Thompson Clive Investments plc,Oppenheimer Global Fund, Oppenheimer Global Bio-Tech Fund,Robinson Capital Partners, Springdale Venture Partners L.P.and private individuals.

Founded in 1982, Quintiles provides a broad range ofintegrated product development services to pharmaceuticaland biotechnology companies. These services include clinicaltrials management, data management, biostatistical analysis,centralized clinical trials laboratory services, preclinical testing,study design, strategic and regulatory consulting, and healtheconomics consulting.

Quintiles has 14 offices in eight countries. In addition to itsheadquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C., the companyowns facilities in San Diego and Ledbury, England. Quintiles alsomaintains offices in London, Cambridge, Mass.; Cranford, N.J.;Smyrna, Ga.; Mountain View, Calif.; Bracknell, England; Dublin,Ireland; North Sydney, Australia; Neu-Isenburg, Germany;Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France; and Tokyo.

Last June, Quintiles was contracted by FDA to standardizeterminology for regulatory drug approval applications in afive-year contract worth up to $6.9 million to the company (seeBioWorld, June 22, 1993). Quintiles was given the task ofdesigning a "dictionary" of standard terminology from standardsources and through a process of consensus among FDA,industry and academia. The project will include standardizationof conventions for data reporting, such as whether drug dosageis expressed in milligrams per kilogram per day or milligramsper square meter of body surface.

-- Karl A. Thiel Business Editor

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