Elan share price up despite brain disease report

ELAN’s share price rose yesterday despite the report of another case of the rare brain disease PML, a potential side-effect of the multiple sclerosis treatment, Tysabri.

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.