WILMINGTON, Del. — DuPont Co. executives expect to decide “within a matter of months” whether to sell their drug division or turn it into an independent company by spinning it off.

        Swapping it for another company's chemical business is “unlikely,” they said.

        Wilmington-based DuPont has been weighing the best way to get out of the drug business since December. Executives said the division is eating up too much of the parent company's research and development budget as it tries to turn a pipeline of potential medications into moneymakers.

        “There is a certain urgency to this decision,” Richard De Schutter, chief executive of DuPont Pharmaceuticals, said in a presentation to analysts in New York. “It is my objective to see this done within a matter of months.”

        If DuPont decides to spin off the drug division, it would likely start with an initial public offering of stock for part of the unit. DuPont would continue to own a majority but eventually spin off the rest to its shareholders.

        An IPO would not likely happen until the end of this year or early 2002. A sale could happen faster, with several large drug companies already publicly expressing interest, including Novartis and GlaxoSmithkline.

        Several chemical industry analysts have urged DuPont to sell the drug unit, which had $1.5 billion in sales in 2000. A sale would give DuPont much-needed cash to invest in its high-growth businesses, said Gene Pisasale of Wilmington Trust Co., DuPont's largest shareholder.

        Other Wall Street analysts favor a sale because they think DuPont's drug division is too small to thrive as an independent company. But DuPont is trying to convince analysts the division could be a success on its own.

        “We have a quality pipeline that would be envied by companies many times our size,” Mr. De Schutter said. “This is hardly a distressed property with an imperative for DuPont to sell it.”

        “There's no doubt that if DuPont (Pharmaceuticals) were a stand-alone company, it could function very well,” said Richard Stover, a drug industry analyst with Arnhold & Bleichroeder in New York.

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