SQUIBB-NOVO GRABBED 20% OF THE DOMESTIC INSULIN MARKET

SQUIBB-NOVO GRABBED 20% OF THE DOMESTIC INSULIN MARKET during 1983, Squibb President Dennis Fill told shareholders May 8 in Princeton, NJ. "Particularly noteworthy events in the U.S.," Fill declared, "included the successful consolidation and productivity of our new sales and marketing organization, and the outstanding performance of Squibb-Novo, which garnered a 20% share of the U.S. insulin market." Squibb-Novo last year introduced the human insulin products Actrapid and Montard. Commenting on the overall financial environment in the health care industry, Squibb Chairman Richard Furlaud told shareholders: "We believe that the costs of medical care can only truly be controlled to the extent that, through research, we can progress beyond today's half-way technologies and acquire knowledge that will prevent or truly cure disease. To that extent, we will continue to expand our commitment to biomedical research and strengthen our expertise in all areas of the research pipeline." "Science provides long-range solutions," Furlaud said, "but politicians, who have their eye on the election around the corner, want short-term fixes. They are more interested in price controls and making sure the public has access to inexpensive versions of drugs that now exist than they are concerned, for example, about regulatory delays and lack of adequate patent protection that could preclude better and more cost effective drugs from becoming available." Furlaud added: "On the other side of the coin, we, ourselves, also intend to put more emphasis on marketing pharmaceuticals that come off patent. After all, Dr. Edward Robinson Squibb's basic concept 125 years ago was to provide generic pharmaceuticals that would be better than the competition's in terms of quality, price and service." Among five newly elected directors announced at the annual meeting, four are top Squibb execs: Jan Leschly, Group VPO for Pharmaceutical Products; Ernest Mario, Group VP for Medical Products; Anthony Ruggiero, Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer; and Daniel Cuoco, Senior VP and General Counsel. At the meeting, stockholders approved a takeover-discouraging amendment to the company's by-laws which contained a "fair-price-super majority" provision in "certain business combinations."