Smith Laboratories has named Timothy Wollaeger president,...

Smith Laboratories has named Timothy Wollaeger president, replacing James Glavin who had been Smith’s acting chief executive since 1985. Glavin will remain as board chairman.

In an interview, Wollaeger said he was hired mainly to lead negotiations for Smith’s proposed merger with International Power Machines Corp. of Garland, Tex. Smith and IPM announced plans to merge last month. Wollaeger’s future with Smith once the merger is complete is “undecided,” he said.

Smith is involved in litigation with Rehabilitation Technologies over an apparently aborted agreement whereby Smith was to have sold its only operating unit, Sutter Corp., to RTI for $12.5 million. Sutter, which makes continuous motion devices used to rehabilitate patients with orthopedic injuries, employs 112 in San Diego.

Wollaeger said he has notified RTI that Smith has “exercised its right” to terminate the Sutter deal, which was first announced last March. But RTI president William Eisenecher said he will continue his company’s lawsuit and try to force completion of the deal.

Wollaeger, a former Hybritech executive, is a principal of Biovest Partners, a venture capital firm he founded with Ted Greene, also formerly of Hybritech. Biovest provided seed capital for six biotechnology and medical product companies, five of which are based in San Diego.

Both men decided recently that Biovest would not raise additional funds to invest in new companies. Rather, Biovest will concentrate on managing its existing investments in the six companies, Wollaeger said.