Elan to pay up to €200m for drug

ELAN Corp, the maker of the Tysabri multiple sclerosis treatment, will pay as much as $200 million (€157.47m) to add an experimental treatment to its Alzheimer’s disease program.

Transition Therapeutics Inc, based in Toronto, will get $7.5m (€5.9m) this year and the same amount next year from Elan for a drug known as AZD-103, in addition to milestone payments that may reach $185m (€145m), Elan said. The drug is in the earliest stage of human research.

Elan is already working with Wyeth to develop two experimental compounds for Alzheimer’s disease.