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• Business podcast: May 26th

  May 26, 2011 @ 7:30 am | by John Collins

  John Collins meets an entrepreneurial DIT student, finds out about Ernst & Young’s views on business in India, gets Dominic Coyle’s view on Elan and hears about the race for the IMF top job from Arthur Beesley

   

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• Elan’s trouble with dates

  January 13, 2009 @ 8:12 pm | by Dominic Coyle

  Elan president Carlos Paya entered the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference hoping to put behind him the controversy over statements attributed to him over a possible extension to the duration of Phase III trials for the company’s Alzheimer’s drug bapineuzimab  currently slated to last 18 months.  Unfortunately, as he moved to clarify -referring to recent confusion – he again alluded to 24 months before hastily correcting himself.

• Crossed lines at Elan

  @ 7:59 pm | by Dominic Coyle

  Irish drugmaker Elan is suffering a significant attack of mixed messages. Just days after chief executive Kelly Martin stated categorically that the maker of multiple sclerosis breakthrough drug Tysabri “isn’t negotiating to sell the company to Pfizer or any other drugmaker”, the company announced a strategic review to assess a range of alternatives (sic) that include . . . a merger or sale.

  That announcement came just after the company put out a statement “clarifying” about an “erroneous report” in news service Bloomberg that said the duration of a Phase III clinical trial for the company’s Alzheimer’s disease drug bapineuzimab could be extended. “The planned [18 month] duration of the trials has not changed since the program was announced in December 2007. There are currently no plans to extend the duration of the Phase III trials,” it said curtly.

  Fair enough, except that the Bloomberg story quotes both Elan president in charge of strategy Carlos Paya and head of corporate relations Mary Stutts (both appointed in recent months, but industry veterans).

  “There are a number of discussions going on, including what is the right duration of the trial,” Paya said in a telephone interview with the news service. “The length is now 18 months. There are also some discussions of making a number of changes in the protocol: should they be 24 months, or 18 months with an extension?” Stutts was reported as saying the discussion about the length of the trials is occurring within the company, and hasn’t been broached with either the Food and Drug Administration [the regulator] or partner Wyeth.

  So just who needs clarification then?