For US armed forces it is now adieu metals, and welcome plastics. Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have designed plastic-composite nosecones for shoulder-fired missiles for the marines. Plastic composites are inexpensive and lighter than metal parts. Difficult to produce, they were ignored by manufacturers. But the researchers have developed a unit at a manufacturing cost of $40 a piece, as against $400 for the aluminium one currently used. Their next product is targeted at the army. It is a plastic-composite part that could lower the weight of a 63 metric tonne M-113 tank, to 34 metric tonnes. A software package developed at the Hoboken School, New Jersey, has spurred the Stevens design.
The Chinese skin, already famed to be flawless, will not take any chance with pimples and acnes. The French company Rhone-Poulenc SA, plans to set up a US $7.2 million joint venture in Shangdong to manufacture skin-care medicines. It will be represented by its US subsidiary, Dermik, which holds 75 per cent of the venture. Shangdong Medical University Yunmen Pharmaceutical Factory holds the rest. The venture will be operative from July 1995.
British Biotech of the UK has embarked upon the last stage of its clinical trials on batimastat, its most significant drug. In case of successful trials, the drug will be submitted for regulatory approval in Europe. The drug prevents the functioning of enzymes which allow cancerous growth, by destroying the tissue connecting healthy cells.
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