A H Robins Co

A. H. Robins Co. on Wednesday said it was uninterested in an unsolicited $840-million offer by Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals to purchase Robins' consumer health-care product lines. The cash offer was for Robins' U.S. Consumer Health Care operations, which markets such products as ChapStick, Robitussin cough syrup and Dimetapp cough suppressant.

A. H. Robins Co., struggling to satisfy injury claims from users of its Dalkon Shield IUD, announced the selection Friday of the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi from among three potential merger partners. Robins' board of directors made the selection after meeting for 11 1/2 hours over two days to weigh merger offers from Sanofi, Rorer Group Inc. of Fort Washington, Pa., and New York-based American Home Products Corp. E. Clairborne Robins Jr.

A. H. Robins Co. and three other parties in the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case moved Wednesday to provide a $15-million emergency fund to help certain victims of the company's Dalkon Shield birth control device. The motion submitted to U.S. Bankruptcy Court, if approved, would pay for reconstructive surgery or artificial fertilization for eligible women who were injured by the birth control device, which Robins sold in the early 1970s.

Nearly 100,000 women have been notified of their options for collecting from a $2.4-billion trust fund set aside to compensate for injuries caused by the Dalkon Shield birth control device. Fund trustees said Saturday they hope the distribution plan--mailed to women last week--will mark the final chapter of one of the nation's largest and most protracted product liability disputes. But some women reacted angrily to the terms and vowed to seek larger settlements.

Rorer Group, one of three suitors seeking to acquire A. H. Robins Co., sweetened its bid Monday for the financially troubled pharmaceutical firm to include a $2.28-billion trust fund for Dalkon Shield claimants. The trust fund, plus an insurance contribution of $200 million and a stock swap valued at about $440 million, would bring the total value of Rorer's bid to about $2.92 billion. Robins shares closed unchanged at $20.

A. H. Robins Co. has filed a fourth version of its reorganization plan to guide it from Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a merger with the American Home Products Corp. while providing a settlement for Dalkon Shield claimants. The plan and an accompanying disclosure statement were submitted to a federal bankruptcy judge Monday night and will be the subject of a March 10 hearing in U.S. District Court.

A. H. Robins Co. has agreed to put $15 million into an emergency fund to pay for reconstructive surgery or in vitro fertilization for some women rendered infertile by the company's Dalkon Shield intrauterine contraceptive device, lawyers in the case said Friday.

A. H. Robins Co. said Thursday that it has received a new buyout proposal from Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical firm. Sanofi, a unit of Paris-based petroleum giant Elf Aquitaine, has offered to provide funding to meet Robins' court-ordered obligation to provide $2.5 billion for women injured by the Dalkon Shield. Under the proposal, Sanofi also would seek the right to acquire a controlling interest in Robins, the company said.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for nearly 100,000 women who were injured by the Dalkon Shield birth-control device in the early 1970s to begin receiving compensation for their injuries. By ending further appeals, the high court brought to an end one of the nation's largest and longest-running product liability cases. The new owners of A. H. Robins Co., makers of the intrauterine device, earlier agreed to create a $2.4-billion fund to settle the outstanding damage claims.

Appeals filed in the days before A. H. Robins Co.'s bankruptcy reorganization was to take effect will delay payments to many Dalkon Shield claimants, a lawyer said Tuesday. Three appeals to the plan had been filed as of Tuesday on behalf of several hundred Dalkon Shield claimants. The deadline for appealing is today, one month after U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr. entered an order confirming the plan, which includes a $2.