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Elan to spin off research arm
Ireland’s Elan is to spin off its Neotope drug discovery business platform as a separate public company, making Elan immediately profitable and potentially more appealing as a takeover target. The decision to split the company comes hard on the heels of the failure of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug being developed with Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, although chief executive Kelly Martin said it had been planned for more than a year.