Analysts said the earnings reports consolidated the company's standing as one of the three or four strongest pharmaceutical concerns.

Dr. Towle was also a paid consultant to three major pharmaceutical concerns.

A contract has been signed with a Belgian pharmaceutical concern to combat the problem.

Whether liposome technology will ever develop to the point that these companies can become fully integrated and profitable pharmaceutical concerns is still unclear.

The situation is aggravated by the intense competition between medical and pharmaceutical concerns.

In some cases the organisations are offshoots of pharmaceutical concerns.

Patent law will also allow pharmaceutical concerns to obtain monopolies, yet human life must never be subject to any kind of monopoly.

Analysts say tighter regulations could be hard on the smaller companies, which are under pressure as big pharmaceutical concerns enter the field of generics.

Merck & Company, the nation's leading pharmaceutical concern, said today that its fourth-quarter earnings increased 32 percent, to $307.3 million.

Mr. Solmssen joined the pharmaceutical concern in 1948 and later became head of its international division.