Leiner Health Products

Company to purchase "substantially all of the assets" of Novopharm's Granutec and Stanley Pharmaceuticals divisions under a definitive agreement announced Oct. 25; the transaction is expected to be completed prior to year-end. Both Leiner and Granutec sell private label cimetidine (SmithKline's Tagamet HB). Granutec also began shipping generic ranitidine July 19, a month after Warner-Lambert's Zantac 75 lost its exclusivity. Stanley Pharmaceuticals manufactures and distributes OTCs and vitamin supplements in Canada; Novopharm is based in Toronto