Elan shares slide again on poor report

DUBLIN, IRELAND - Shares in Elan Corp., Ireland&#39;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&#39;s treatment. <br> <br> Elan was trading at $13.60, down almost 2 percent, on the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin. <br> <br> 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> <br> Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating Elan&#39;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> <br> Elan also shocked market analysts this month by unexpectedly slashing its earnings forecasts for 2002. <br> <br> The company&#39;s downward spiral began in January when it suspended tests of an experimental Alzheimer&#39;s treatment that was shaping up to be one of Elan&#39;s most promising new products. <br> <br> At the time, Elan said four of the 360 Alzheimer&#39;s sufferers being given the drug had suffered potentially lethal inflammation of the central nervous system. <br> <br> Friday&#39;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> <br> 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.

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