Elan shares fall on MS drug news

ELAN, the Irish pharmaceutical company, saw its share price slip by 4c yesterday on the back of seven more cases of a rare brain disease being reported amongst users of its multiple sclerosis treatment Tysabri.

The update came from US drug company Biogen Idec, which co-owns Tysabri, and means that instances of PML – a potentially fatal brain disease which is a possible side effect of Tysabri – have risen from 35 to 42 in the four weeks up to March 10.

Elan’s Dublin share price slipped by 4c, or 0.73%, to €5.46 yesterday, on the back of that news and the announcement that Phase 3 trial results from in-research Alzheimer’s drug Bapineuzumab look set to be put back from late 2011 to the middle of 2012, mainly due to test recruitment issues.