Elan will shutter South S.F. center as it shifts R&D to new company

Elan Corp. will shutter its South San Francisco drug discovery operations as it shifts the work into a new publicly held company. The Irish biotech company (NASDAQ: ELN), which this summer saw a high-profile experimental Alzheimer's drug crash in late-stage clinical trials, will have no drug discovery or preclinical drug development programs by Dec. 31, it said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week. Closing the South San Francisco facilities, where most of Elan's roughly 400 employees are housed, will translate into $160 million to $180 million in employee severance costs, facilities costs and other restructuring charges, according to the Tuesday filing.

Elan looks to spin Alzheimer's research into South S.F.-based company

Fresh from the failure of an Alzheimer's disease drug, Elan Corp. plans to spin off its South San Francisco-based Neotope research organization into a separate company. Neotope was established in 2010 to identify targets for chronic degenerative diseases and other diseases, the company said, but the spinoff depends on approval by shareholders and holders of Elan's 2016 notes. If approved, Elan (NYSE: ELN)) said, a listing for Neotope Biosciences could be on a U.S. exchange by the end of this year. The company would be incorporated in Ireland, which also is Elan's home.