Elan shares got a bit of a boost this week with the news that a migraine drug for which it has the United States marketing rights has been deemed "approvable" by the FDA. But one broker, Credit Suisse First Boston, is wholly unimpressed and believes that the announcement about Vanguard Medica's Miguard drug has been grossly misinterpreted by the markets.

In a confidential briefing note to its clients (seen by Current Account), CSFB's pharmaceutical research team of David Maris, Andrea Klauber and Anne Friedrich don't mince their words. "Market misinterpreting news - Miguard still delayed and disadvantaged", they state bluntly.

The CSFB team do not foresee any FDA approval before late 2000 or early 2001. "The critical question to ask is whether this release yesterday changed the timetable of an approval or the potential sales of the product. Since it does not, in our opinion, it represents nothing incre mentally positive." CSFB obviously doesn't have much time for PR people!

Dismissing Miguard as a "significantly disadvantaged metoo product", CSFB says that assertions that the drug will become an important migraine treatment "are overly optimistic and may not fully recognise the impressive host of additional treatments in development".