Cause of explosion at Hoechst Celanese's Pampa facility is unknown The cause of the explosion, which also left four people seriously injured and 31 others with minor injuries, is unknown. A Hoechst Celanese spokesman says that the first blast occurred near a gas-fired boiler and the second blast at a nearby reactor in which butane is reacted with steam to produce acetic acid. Dean McDaniel, area director of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration in Lubbock, Tex., says the agency also is looking into the accident. OSHA investigators were on site the day following the explosions. The blasts occurred on Saturday, Nov. 14, when only a weekend crew of 60 were on site. The 35-year-old plant employs 600 persons, 150 as contract maintenance and construction workers. A plant team brought the fire under control with the aid of the Pampa fire department. Pampa firechief J. D. Ray says that his department worked smoothly with plant personnel. Ray and plant officials credited the Chemical Manufacturers Association's Community Awareness & Emergency Response Program (CARE), developed after the Bhopal disaster, for the effectiveness of their efforts in putting out the fire. Hoechst Celanese officials said it was too early to decide whether to rebuild the butane reactor, install a newer methanol-to-acetic acid process, or start up a standby acetic acid facility at Bay City, Tex., to replace the idled 350-million-lb acetic acid plant. Meanwhile, the com-
pany's acetic acid customers were told they would receive for an indefinite period only 60% of amounts allocated to them. Marc Reisch, New York
Biotechnology's first big drug gets FDA nod Genentech has received Food & Drug Administration approval to market its blood clot-dissolving drug, tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA); and the South San Franciscobased biotechnology company says the drug, tradenamed Activase, will be shipped this week to doctors for use in treating heart attack patients. Estimates peg the eventual t-PA market at as much as $1 billion or more per year, making it what many observers have called biotechnology's first "blockbuster" product. On the strength of t-PA approval, Genentech could attain sales of $200 million next year and $400 million in 1990, according to M. Kathy Behrens, an analyst with Robertson, Colman & Stephens, San Francisco. Genentech will sell Activase for $2200 per dose, the company announced last week. Genentech's sales totaled $134 million in 1986. It is reasonably certain, Behrens points out, that Genentech soon will be fielding one of the largest selling pharmaceuticals in the world, with as many as 600,000 heart attack victims potentially eligible for treatment with t-PA each year in the U.S. Genentech's Activase faces com-
petition, but it appears likely that for the next few years, at least, the company will dominate the market for thrombolytics. A number of other companies are working on versions of t-PA, but only Burroughs Wellcome, in collaboration with Genetics Institute, has begun human clinical trials. Intravenous administration of another thrombolytic, streptokinase, also has been approved recently by FDA. Although streptokinase costs only about one tenth as much per dose as t-PA, studies suggest that it is not as effective as t-PA. Most observers believe Genentech's t-PA will claim a major share of the thrombolytics market as cardiologists lean toward use of t-PA over streptokinase. In late May, an FDA advisory panel recommended that the agency approve intravenous administration of streptokinase for heart attacks and withhold approval for t-PA until Genentech answered questions about the drug's safety and effective dosages. That recommendation generated widespread criticism of FDA and caused Genentech's stock to plunge almost 25% in value in two days. Genentech's stock has rallied in the past two weeks in expectation of FDA's approval of t-PA. Rudy Baum, San Francisco
Bhopal settlement attempt hits snags The "atmosphere of reconciliation" that Union Carbide and the Indian government announced with tempered glee in September has deteriorated to grim disappointment. After two tries at reaching a settlement of the December 1984, methyl isocyanate disaster at Bhopal, attorneys for both sides went before Bhopal district court Judge M. W. Deo last week and announced that they needed more time. Deo, who urged them to settle and had issued them two deadlines, told them to return Nov. 27 at which time he would issue a trial schedule. Sources close to the settlement tell C&EN that Carbide's offer of $492.6 million distributed over 10 years is being viewed as "too meaNovember 23, 1987 C&EN
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News of the Week ger." The Indian government is said to be insisting on a $1 billion package consisting of $650 million as a lump sum, with the rest doled out over the 10 years. The government has become increasingly sensitive to critics, led by retired Supreme Court justice Jagdish Bhagwati demanding that Carbide admit liability. The sources say Carbide could easily afford the $650 million up-front sum. They say insurance would cover $200 million, a Carbide reserve another $150 million, and the issuance of bonds the remaining $300 million. "If Union Carbide could assume billions of dollars in debt in avoiding the takeover attempt by GAF, they can certainly afford to borrow $300 million," says one source. If the trial proceeds, Judge Deo will begin the process of ruling on the crucial liability question— whether Carbide in fact had control of the Bhopal pesticide plant. That could take only a few weeks. Then the main body of the trial— for the amount of damages—will proceed. India is seeking $3.3 billion in such damages. Wil Lepkowski, Washington
Callis wins ACS presidential election American Chemical Society members have elected Clayton F. Callis as 1988 president-elect. Callis will serve as ACS president in 1989 and as a member of the ACS Board of Directors from 1988 to 1990. Four other directors were elected to serve three-year terms on the ACS Board, and three amendments to the ACS constitution were ratified by the membership. Since his 1985 retirement as director of environmental operations for Monsanto Fibers & Intermediates Co., Callis, 64, has been vice president of Chelan Associates, a St. Louis-based environmental consulting firm. Currently a director-atlarge on the ACS Board, he has served in a number of ACS governance positions during the past several years. He has been a member of the board since 1977, served as its chairman in 1982 and 1983, and 8
November 23, 1987 C&EN
is a member of the board's Executive Committee. He is also currently chairman of the Society Committee on Chemical Abstracts Service and serves on the Society Committee on Budget & Finance, which he chaired in 1981. He also has served on the Society Committee on Publications, the C&EN Editorial Board, and a number of other committees. Callis received 14,183 votes—503 votes more than his opponent, Newman M. Bortnick. Bortnick is a corporate research fellow at Rohm & Haas in Spring House, Pa., and a director-at-large on the ACS Board. The four other positions on the ACS Board decided in this election included two directors-at-large and two regional directors. Of five candidates vying for director-at-large, who are elected by voting members of the ACS Council, the winners were Ernest L. Eliel, with 219 votes, and Helen M. Free, with 155 votes. For Eliel, who is currently ACS Board chairman and W. R. Kenan Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, it will be his second successive term as director-at-large. For Free, professional relations consultant for Miles Laboratories, it will be her first term as director-at-large, although she served as director from Region V in 1983-85. Free won by a slim margin over two other candidates—Stanley Kirschner, professor of chemistry at Wayne State University, with 152 votes; and C.
ACS voting breakdown Votes P R F S I R F N T - F I FP.T
Clayton F. Callis Newman M. Bortnick Total valid ballots DIRECTORS-AT-LARGEb Ernest L. Eliel Helen M. Free Stanley Kirschner C. Marvin Lang Frederick H. Owens RFGIONAI DIRFOTORS Region III Ned D. Heindel Maureen G. Chan Region VI Jeanne M. Shreeve Seymour Siegel
J 1
14,183 13,680 27,863a 219 155 152 150 98 2315 2038 2651 2228
a Of ballots cast, 575 were declared invalid, b Elected by vote of councilors.
I
Clayton F. Callis Marvin Lang, professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, with 150 votes. The fifth candidate, Frederick H. Owens, manager of information services at Rohm & Haas and who was nominated by petition, received 98 votes. For director from Region HI—an area that includes Delaware, New Jersey, and parts of Maryland and eastern Pennsylvania—Ned D. Heindel, H. S. Bunn Professor at Lehigh University, was re-elected to a second term with 2315 votes. His opponent, Maureen G. Chan, supervisor of the polymer stabilization group at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J., received 2038 votes. For director from Region VI, the western U.S., Jean'ne M. Shreeve, associate vice president for research and dean of graduate school at the University of Idaho, was re-elected to a second term with 2651 votes. Her opponent, Seymour Siegel, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Los Angeles, garnered 2228 votes. In the mail balloting, ACS members also overwhelmingly ratified three amendments to the ACS constitution regarding terms of councilors and resolution of election disputes. These amendments, adopted earlier this year by the council, are now in effect. They involve Article VII, Sec. 5(a), and Article X, Sec. 7 and 8. Ernest Carpenter, Washington
