Elan on road to recovery

THE drug company Elan said yesterday that it expects the long running investigation into its accounts by US financial watchdog, the Securities & Exchange Commission, will not be over for another few months.

Chief executive Kelly Martin told shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting in Dublin that the inquiry, which has been going on since financial questions were raised in January 2002, would probably take a few more months before the SEC announced its findings.

He said the company was hopeful of a positive outcome, but it could still not say what the findings would be. However, shareholders, who have seen the value of their investment collapse in the past couple of years, were told that the company was on the road to recovery.