Elan, Transition push ahead with troubled Alzheimer’s drug

Elan and Transition Therapeutics have reported fresh trouble with their partnered Alzheimer's drug, noting that it failed to hit its mid-stage primary endpoints. Late last year the deaths of nine patients in the study prompted investigators to drop the highest dose being used in the trial. But the two developers say they're committed to pushing ahead into Phase III, despite a considerable amount of flak coming from analysts following their progress. Elan reported that the ELND005 study's...

Elan studies plans to spin off $1B drug tech unit

After scuttling plans to auction off its drug delivery tech unit two years ago, executives at Elan say they may now spin it off into a separate company. A spin-off would create two public companies and provide the drug development side of Elan extra funds to pay down debt. Ian Hunter, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers, valued the drug technology arm at about $950 million--just shy of Elan's $1 billion estimate. The drug development arm would be renamed Elan BioNeurology, the company...