ft 990*?**"* å£t)c Utasliington flost  
. Û¢ Flow General, Inc. yesterday an-. timihced it will sell its Worthington I Diagnostic Systems unit to Cooper . laboratories iii exchange for $16.5 Trillion worth of Cooper stock. The Ûª.transaction includes the rights to .FlowÛªs licenses in a premising ÛÏartificial skinÛ technology.</br></br>ÛÏThis is part of our overall strategy to reduce our debt and restore -profitability,Û said Rod Cook, Flow "GeneralÛªs vice president of finance. fÛÏThe best way to reduce the debt was by divestiture.Û Û¢ÐÊÛ¢fin acquiring Worthington, Cooper , Ljiltjs will also acquire $34.7 million of* the companyÛªs liabilities. That debt assumption would drop Flow General's long-term debt to about $42.3 million from $72 million.</br></br>The sa|e, which is subject to a de-Jinitive agreement, comes four months after Flow General announced its intention to sell the di-"yisibn and only 18 months i after Flow itself had acquired the company for $57.7 million.</br></br>...ÛÏInitially, the desire was to integrate Worthington into our biomedical operations." Cook said, ÛÏThat ,,didnÛªt happen. We would have liked . to get at leasl the original purchase price for it.Û</br></br>'Though Worthington revenues were estimated at roughly $32 mil-AC(,n in fiscal 1983, Flow General of-. fifeials say they ÛÏdonÛªt knowÛ whether it is operating at a profit. ÛÏ ÛÏI believe that, they have been losing money,Û said Parker Montgomery, chairman ofåÈ Cooper ; Laborato-, rics. a diversified medical technology company based in Palo Alto, Calif, -with annual revenues approaching $450 million. ÛÏWe think itÛªs an ex-ycellent fit for us because we can integrate it into our .operations. Because of the problems, they never had a chance to integrate into Flow.Û