drugs account for $3 billion a year in sales by pharmaceutical companies. In 1986, RTI was awarded a $4 million contract with the National Cancer Institute to conduct an eight-year clinical trial on the effects of an anti-smoking campaign. Two years later, RTI began a $4.4 million program to co-ordinate AIDS drug trials for the National Institutes of Health. This grew to $26 million by 1988.

RTI scientists helped to identify toxic