	montedison uires arco research unit montedison spa moni mi has uired a pct stake in plant cell research institute pcri of california from atlantic richfield co arc n for several tens of millions of dollars a senior montedison executive said renato ugo a member of montedison s management committee told reporters that stanford research institute international of menlo park california had acted as a partner in the purchase itself uiring a stake in pcri of under pct pcri based in dublin california has a biotechnology research laboratory ugo said the price paid included outlays for the laboratory technology and staff he said other negotiations were under way with biotechnology companies in the health care and diagnostics sectors through montedison s health care subsidiary erbamont nv but gave no details we hope they will be concluded by the year end he said montedison currently invests around billion lire a year in biotechnology research and expects to increase this figure to around billion lire in the next few years reuter 
