Elan share price down 20%

ELAN’S share price fell nearly 20.5% (88c) to €3.42 yesterday, after the European Medicines Agency said it planned to review Tysabri — the MS drug co-owned by Elan and US drug firm Biogen Idec.

Earlier this week Biogen said it was talking with the FDA in the US with regard to the potential need to relabel health risks on Tysabri packaging because of renewed concerns that the risk of chief side effect and rare brain disease, PML could be accentuated with repeated use of the drug. To date, there have been 23 outbreaks of PML among Tysabri users.