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.