Suspended Drug’s Maker Predicts Return to Market

Seeking to reassure its shareholders, Irish drug manufacturer Elan Corp. predicted Thursday that its suspended key product, the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri, would eventually return to the market.

Addressing investors at the company’s annual meeting in Dublin, Chief Executive Kelly Martin said the company was working with its research partner, Biogen Idec Inc. of Massachusetts, to identify the drug’s real dangers.

Martin said executives from both companies would meet U.S. regulators to discuss the “path forward for Tysabri” once their internal review was complete by late summer. “It’s a question of when and what path that takes, not a question of if,” he said.

Biogen, which merged in 2003 with Idec Pharmaceuticals of San Diego, intended to produce Tysabri at a $380-million facility in Oceanside, Calif.

Martin added that, even in “a worst-case scenario” where Tysabri didn’t return to sale, Elan still was on course to break even financially in 2006 -- reversing three years of red ink -- and would meet debt repayments.

Shares of Elan rose about 12% to $8.05.

In November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Tysabri for sale to the 350,000 American sufferers of multiple sclerosis, a debilitating and incurable disease that can cause sudden partial paralysis.

But Elan and Biogen withdrew the drug from the market Feb. 28 after two people taking the drug contracted a rare and usually fatal brain disease called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML. One died.