Ciba Corning Diagnostics Corp., of Medfield, Mass., said it hasacquired the cancer diagnostics business of Triton Diagnosticsinc., a subsidiary of Shell Oil Co.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. TritonDiagnostics now becomes Triton Laboratories, which willoperate as a fully integrated unit of Ciba Corning.

Triton of Alameda, Calif., currently has a portfolio of fivemanual, non-isotopic in vitro cancer diagnostics. Four assaysuse breast cancer markers -- one being the oncogene c-erbB-2-- and one uses the ovarian cancer marker urinarygonadotropin (UGP). It also has developed assays forgastrointestinal cancer, as well as several tissue basedproducts and antibody histology reagents.

Shell Oil sold off Triton's therapeutics division to ScheringBerlin Inc. of Wayne, N.J., the U.S. holding company of ScheringAG, in November 1990.

Ciba Corning intends to bring full automation capability tocancer testing via its recently launched product ACS:180, afully automated, random access chemiluminescentimmunoassay system.

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