UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange
Act of 1934
APRIL 28, 1998
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(Date of earliest event reported)
LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA HOLDINGS
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(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
DELAWARE 1-11353 13-3757370
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(State or other (Commission (IRS Employer
jurisdiction or File Number) Identification
organization) Number)
358 SOUTH MAIN STREET, BURLINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA 27215
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(Address of principal executive offices)
336-229-1127
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(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)
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ITEM 5. OTHER EVENTS
On April 28, 1998, the Company issued a press release
announcing an exclusive partnership with VIRCO, a Belgian-based
biotechnology company, to offer blood analysis tests that will
tell doctors and their HIV+ patients which drugs are likely
to be effective against the individual patient's virus and which
are not.
ITEM 7. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, PRO FORMA FINANCIAL
INFORMATION AND EXHIBITS
(c) Exhibit
20 Press release of the Company dated April 28, 1998.
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SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities and
Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this
report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto
duly authorized.
LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA HOLDINGS
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(Registrant)
By:/s/ BRADFORD T. SMITH
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Bradford T. Smith
Executive Vice President,
General Counsel, Secretary
and Compliance Officer
Date: May 7, 1998
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Pamela Sherry
Telephone: 336-584-5171,
Ext. 4855
IMPORTANT NEW AIDS ADVANCE IN HIV RESISTANCE TESTING
LabCorp-Registered Trademark- Partners with Virco to
Bring New Technology to U.S.
BURLINGTON, NC, APRIL 28, 1998 _ Laboratory Corporation
of America-Registered Trademark- Holdings (LabCorp-
Registered Trademark-) (NYSE: LH) today announced an
exclusive partnership with VIRCO, a Belgian-based
biotechnology company, to offer blood analysis tests
that will tell doctors and their HIV+ patients which
drugs are likely to be effective against the individual
patient's virus and which are not.
As of July, LabCorp will be offering physicians and
patients this novel tool, called the Antivirogram-TM-.
The tests measure the susceptibility of HIV to all
approved anti-retroviral drugs and therefore will help
guide the use of multi-drug cocktails for the treatment
of HIV/AIDS.
"We believe that this new technology will permit
LabCorp to offer the broadest array of testing services
to clinicians treating HIV/AIDS patients," said Thomas
P. Mac Mahon, President and Chief Executive Officer of
LabCorp. "This partnership with VIRCO allows us to add
an important weapon to individual HIV patient care."
The availability of this HIV resistance testing brings
phenotyping, a method of assessing viral sensitivity
(susceptibility) to anti-HIV drugs by measuring the
ability of the virus to grow in the presence of each
drug, to physicians and their HIV+ patients. Similar
phenotyping technology is widely used to evaluate which
antibiotics will be most effective against a particular
bacterium. VIRCO scientists were the first to design
and put into commercial practice a rapid and automated
phenotypic test for HIV.
As part of its improved HIV diagnostic and prognostic
services, LabCorp is planing to use VIRCO's new
phenotyping technology to enhance the analysis of
existing genotypic testing, which identifies genetic
mutations that can signify drug resistance. As a
result of the partnership, LabCorp will have exclusive
access to VIRCO's unique HIV resistance database, the
first to relate genotypic analysis to phenotypic
interpretation.
"The combination of genotypic and phenotypic resistance
testing will provide the most comprehensive guide for
physicians choosing anti-retroviral therapy for
patients with HIV/AIDS. Resistance testing will be an
important advance in the management of patients with
HIV/AIDS," said Dr. John Mellors, M.D., Associate
Professor of Medicine and Director of the HIV/AIDS
Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
"It is another tool to help physicians and patients map
out long-term treatment strategies."
In addition to stipulating an exclusive arrangement for
the marketing of the Antivirogram-TM- tests in the U.S.,
the agreement with VIRCO will also give LabCorp the
exclusive right to offer the test for clinical trial
sales in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
VIRCO is a privately-held high tech/molecular biology
company that was founded in 1995 by Rudi Pauwels, Ph.D.
and Paul Stoffels, M.D. in Belgium, and Brendan Larder,
Ph.D. in the U.K. VIRCO specializes in genomics and
bioinformatics applied to disease management and is at
the forefront of the development and implementation of
complex technologies to monitor HIV drug sensitivity in
infected persons. VIRCO's scientists have extensive
experience in the field of antiviral development and
drug resistance, having performed phenotypic resistance
testing on more than 7,000 samples.
Laboratory Corporation of America-Registered Trademark-
Holdings (LabCorp-Registered Trademark-) is a national
clinical laboratory organization with revenues of $1.5
billion in 1997. The Company operates primarily
testing facilities nationally, offering more than 1,700
different clinical assays, from routine blood analyses
to more sophisticated technologies. LabCorp performs
diagnostic tests for physicians, managed-care
organizations, hospitals, clinics, long-term care
facilities, industrial companies, and other clinical
laboratories.
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