DUBLIN, IRELAND - Shares in Elan Corp., Ireland's largest pharmaceutical company, slid Friday after The Washington Post reported deepening troubles in its joint effort with an American firm to develop a new Alzheimer's treatment. <br>
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Elan was trading at $13.60, down almost 2 percent, on the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin. <br>
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After years of aggressive growth, the firm, based in the central town of Athlone, is enduring a wave of bad news that has slashed its stock value by two-thirds in recent weeks. <br>
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Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating Elan's accounting practices after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company appeared to be concealing losses in joint ventures, an Enron-style practice that Elan chiefs vehemently denied. <br>
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Elan also shocked market analysts this month by unexpectedly slashing its earnings forecasts for 2002. <br>
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The company's downward spiral began in January when it suspended tests of an experimental Alzheimer's treatment that was shaping up to be one of Elan's most promising new products. <br>
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At the time, Elan said four of the 360 Alzheimer's sufferers being given the drug had suffered potentially lethal inflammation of the central nervous system. <br>
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Friday's Washington Post reported that the number had risen to 12, casting doubt on hopes that the project - involving patients in four European countries and 11 U.S. locations - could be revived. <br>
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Elan developed the treatment in a joint venture with Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories of St. Davids, Pa., the biggest division of American Home Products Corp. of Madison, N.J.
