SYDNEY, April 26 -- AsiaNet JOHNSON ELECTRIC... HONG KONG: Johnson Electric is scheduled to report itsannual results for the financial year ending 31st March 2004 on7th June 2004. Ahead of its annual results announcement, thecompany expects to hold discussions with securities analystsand investors in the normal course of its business that maycover aspects of Johnson Electric's performance for the year. www.johnsonelectric.com AVENTIS DEALBREAKER... BASEL: Novartis announced today it decided to discontinuenegotiations and not submit a bid for a potential combinationof Aventis and Novartis' businesses. Novartis had enterednegotiations at the unanimous request of the AventisSupervisory Board as an alternative to Sanofi's hostile bid forAventis. Following Aventis' decision to engage in discussionswith Sanofi, at the strong intervention of the FrenchGovernment, Novartis decided not to proceed. www.novartis.com SYDNEY SOFTWARE... FOLSOM, Calif: Meridian Project Systems, provider ofleading-edge enterprise software solutions for the real estate,construction and facility lifecycle, announces the opening ofits new Asia Pacific office located in Sydney, Australia.Meridian is commemorating this new office opening with twolaunch events featuring its enterprise software solution,Proliance. www.mps.com PUBLISHING FIRST... In what appears to be a world first, Nielsen BookDataannounced today that it will supply a Dynamic XML service fromits International database to global ebook aggregator, eBooksCorporation. Publishers will be able to supplement theirmetadata with information from the Nielsen BookData databasethrough Pi, eBooks' recently launched publisher interface. Themove will be a time-saver for publishers who often face adaunting data-entry task in submitting their new titles toebook aggregators. www.nielsenbookdata.com GIGANTISM DRUG... BASEL: Novartis announced today that the Japanese healthauthority has approved Sandostatin LAR (octreotide acetate forinjectable suspension) for the treatment of acromegaly andpituitary gigantism which is unresponsive to or unsuitable forsurgery or other drug therapies, and for symptoms associatedwith gastrointestinal hormone secreting tumors (also known asgastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, includingcarcinoid tumors, gastrinomas, and VIPomas (VasoactiveIntestinal Peptide-secreting tumors). www.novartisoncologyvpo.com (AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agenciesdistributing unedited, translated news releases for worldwideclients. Visit www.asianetnews.net for full-text versions.)