Royalty puts Elan under pressure

Royalty Pharma has urged the board of Irish biotech firm Elan to engage it in takeover talks immediately.

The call was made yesterday, as Elan shareholders approved only one of four resolutions put to them at the company’s EGM, effectively lapsing Royalty’s previously tabled interest in the firm.

Results from the meeting, which lasted just seven minutes, in Dublin’s Davenport Hotel, showed that shareholders crucially approved management’s additional share buy-back plan, but voted against the plans to buy royalty rights from US pharma Theravance; purchase Austrian orphan drug firm AOP; and spin-out its early-stage potential Alzheimer’s treatment, ELND005 to a new company.