Elan share price up despite brain disease report
Elan’s partner in the production of Tysabri, US pharmaceutical company Biogen Idec, has been making weekly updates on PML activity for the past few months. Its last publicly available online posting on Friday highlighted another instance of the disease.
This is the eleventh case of PML – or Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy – since Tysabri returned to international markets in 2006. Of Biogen’s last seven weekly updates, four have featured a positive identification of the disease.
The latest case concerns a Tysabri user in the US who had received 29 doses of the drug. In the US, Tysabri is also used for the treatment of intestinal condition Crohn’s Disease. Elan said it has no plans to re-apply for a licence to issue Tysabri to Crohn’s sufferers outside of the US.
Biogen and Elan are now set to inform European and US regulators and medical personnel on future cases of PML, rather than give online updates.
Despite the instances of PML, the total number of cases still lies well below the accepted risk rate of Tysabri, which is listed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as being one case of PML for every 1,000 users.
On a day when Dublin’s ISEQ market of shares started the week on a poor footing – falling by 1.16% to 2,770.61 points – Elan rose by 1.31%, or 7c, on Friday’s close to €5.40.
At Elan’s annual general meeting earlier this month, management said that while they had been surprised that the Elan share price hadn’t been boosted further on the back of the recent investment in the firm by US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, they were confident that value would return to the stock in the future.
Chairman Kyran McLaughlin said the highs of last year – Elan’s share price was around the €22 mark this time last year – outstripped the realistic speed of the company’s operational developments.
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