CITGO TO USE AVITAR DRUG TESTS

Avitar Inc., which recently developed a saliva-based drug test that replaces
a widely used urine-based exam, yesterday said it signed a contract with
Citgo Petroleum Corp. to provide its test to job applicants at 14,500
Citgo-brand gas stations, convenience stores and Quick Lube outlets. Citgo's
franchisees can use the 15-minute drug tests primarily as a preemployment
screening, but also after a workplace accident, said Peter P. Phildius,
chairman of Canton-based Avitar.

Each saliva test can screen for marijuana, cocaine, opiates, and newer
''club drugs'' such as Ecstasy, E, and XTC.

The contract is the company's largest to date. If implemented at all Citgo
locations nationwide, it would have an annual value of $6.5 million,
Phildius said. He said Avitar is supplying the comprehensive substance-abuse
test, which it calls ORALadvantage, and an earlier version called ORALscreen
that only tests for marijuana, cocaine, and opiates. Phildius said an
advantage of the new test is that it is often done in front of an employer,
such as a hiring manager, with results in five to 15 minutes. By contrast,
results of urine-based tests can take several days and require paying
someone to collect the sample and send it to a laboratory.

Avitar's tests are used primarily for hourly wage workers, who are often
young and mobile and move from job to job in the construction industry or on
manufacturing lines.

Corporate buyers of the Avitar tests, which cost about $22 each, include
Archer Daniels Midland, Dell Computer, TJ Maxx, and Shoneys. Phildius said
ORALadvantage requires putting a small sponge in the mouth to absorb oral
fluids, primarily saliva, for two minutes. The foam device then is removed
and four drops are squeezed on four coated testing plates, each with red
lines. The disappearance of any of the lines means the person is testing
positive for one of the four illegal drugs.

''In the $1.5 billion drug testing industry, which is 95 percent urine
exams, we have the potential to convert a lot of those tests to on-site oral
testing with much quicker results,'' said Phildius. Avitar is among a group
of oral fluid diagnostic companies using human saliva to develop medical
tests that replace blood-based exams. Epitope Inc. of Beaverton, Ore., has
developed a saliva test that can detect one of the AIDS viruses while Saliva
Diagnostic Systems Inc. of New York has a test for Helicobacter pylori, the
bacteria found in the stomach that causes gastritis and ulcers.

A fourth US-based company, Biex Inc. of Dublin, Calif., recently announced a
quick saliva-based diagnostic test to measure the presence of estriol, a sex
hormone that increases two to three weeks before preterm delivery in
pregnant women. The test can determine whether an expectant mother will go
into labor ahead of her due date or later.

Some medical researchers say saliva-based tests have their limits, however,
because the concentration of material being measured is significantly
smaller than what can be found in circulating blood. That limitation,
however, is not stopping the oral fluid diagnostic companies looking to
develop a wide range of saliva-based diagnostic tests to detect infectious
disesase.

Avitar recently raised $3 million to develop oral fluid disease detection
tests starting with Lyme disease.

It is also planning a saliva-based pregnancy test, an influenza exam and
what Phildius calls ''the holy grail of all tests,'' an oral diabetes
detection test.