McKESSON DRUG WILL BE HEADED BY DAVID McDOWELL

McKESSON DRUG WILL BE HEADED BY DAVID McDOWELL, currently the president of the parent corporation, until a successor is selected for Thomas Simone, who announced his planned departure from the firm on Oct. 25. Simone, 51, has been president of the drug distribution business at McKesson since early 1991, when he assumed that position from Joseph Polastri. Simone will leave McKesson in five months at the end of the company's current fiscal year. He will have management responsibility for the company's service merchandising business and Zee Medical products. Polastri filled a similar role in the previous transition period. McDowell's interim appointment implies an external search for a replacement. He comes from outside the drug and distribution businesses, recruited from IBM at the beginning of 1992. The high technology, systems background that McDowell embodies has contributed in part to the refurbished image of McKesson within the financial community. The company released the management change information as several of its top execs set out on a round of presentations to the financial community. The company has been featuring its PCS business to the financial community as a sign of its ability to participate in the managed care environment. PCS accounts for just over 1% of the company's total health care services volume. McKesson Drug has just finished a round of regional management shifts and established a consolidated hospital and alternate site sales and marketing organization. Drug distribution sales increased 6% in the first quarter and 8% in the second quarter ended Sept. 30. The departing head of McKesson Drug says he intends to seek "new entrepreneurial opportunities" to "apply my knowledge of health care to the emerging sectors of the industry whose focus is on providing quality, cost-effective products and services to meet the needs of the managed care marketplace." Simone has been with McKesson for over 22 years. For most of the decade prior to his ascension to the McKesson Drug position, Simone served in the financial controls side of the business, from where the company's current chairman, Alan Seelenfreund, worked his way to the top of the corporation.