Elan ‘expects profit’ next year

MANAGEMENT at Irish pharmaceutical company Elan has re-iterated to shareholders that the |firm should be profitable by the end of next year, adding that the business had effectively turned the corner.

At the company’s annual general meeting in Dublin, Elan chairman Kyran McLaughlin said the board was “very optimistic that the company was at the turning point now” and expressed hope in its share price recovering in value.

Elan’s share price has dropped by nearly €20 in the last 12 months and is hovering around the €5 mark in Dublin. While Mr McLaughlin said, yesterday, the board was surprised the company’s share price didn’t rise more on the back of the recent announcement of its strategic link-up with US healthcare giant, Johnson & Johnson, he added that last year’s share price highs had “run ahead” of events and were progressing at an unrealistic pace compared with the real pace of progress of the company’s actual operations.