Takeover talk buoys Elan shares

SHARES in Elan were up by nearly 9% yesterday, after surging by more than 17% earlier in the day, on the back of renewed speculation that the company may be bought out by Danish pharmaceutical group, Lundbeck.

While a spokesperson for Elan – headquartered in Dublin with its main production facility in Athlone – reiterated the line that the company doesn’t comment on media or market speculation, yesterday’s boost in the company’s share price was the biggest single day move for the stock since the end of March; when the last link with Lundbeck was mooted.

One Dublin-based analyst expressed doubt over such a takeover happening. Elan’s own management is hopeful of establishing, as part of its ongoing group strategic review, a partnership with a big international pharmaceutical to further develop its pipeline of Alzheimer’s treatments, currently in varying degrees of testing.