He contacted Novartis, which makes Zometa and Aredia, the intravenous drugs.
Dr. Coleman and Dr. Gnant are paid consultants for Novartis, which contributed some money.
This is the first year that Novartis, which is based in Switzerland, has done its accounting in dollars.
Zoledronic acid, or zoledronate, is sold under the brand name Zometa by Novartis, which paid for the study.
Stock in Novartis, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, rose less than 1percentto to 45.34 Swiss francs a share.
Novartis, which owns 44percentt of Chiron, initially offered $40 a share for the remaining stock, but Chiron's board rejected the bid as too low.
At least 30 companies have responded, including the Swiss drug giant Novartis, which has opened an institute here to develop drugs to fight tuberculosis and the dengue virus.
As for Ciba-Geigy, its pharmaceutical arm morphed into Novartis, which makes drugs to cure some of the cancers its predecessor may have once caused.
Cell Genesys, based in South San Francisco, Calif., bought rights to virus therapies that kill cancer cells from Novartis, which will retain some development options.
Aventis board members said Friday that merging with Novartis, which would create the second-biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, after Pfizer, would be the best solution.
New Jersey also lost out in a recent decision by the Swiss drug maker Novartis, which has its United States base in East Hanover.
