Irish drugmaker Elan reported a wider first-quarter net loss, as expected, today, but disappointed investors looking for an update on a strategic overhaul of the company.
The pharmaceutical group, which hired Citigroup in January to conduct a review of its business, including a possible sale or merger, said only that the process was continuing. In February, Elan said Citigroup would report back to its board with recommendations in around 10 weeks.
The company’s options include the sale of a minority stake to a larger drugmaker, Mr Martin said.
"All that people really cared about was the strategic review and they didn't mention anything. They're clearly for sale and nobody wants to buy them," one Dublin-based trader said.
"I'm surprised the stock hasn't been hit harder but it's at a bit of an end-game, just lingering here, doing nothing."
Elan rose as much as 8.2 per cent to €4.60 in Dublin earlier today and was trading at €4.33 by 2.45pm, a gain of less than 2 per cent.
The shares have fallen 70 per cent in the last year.
The company “is confident it will see a reacceleration to a stronger growth trend,” chief financial officer Shane Cook said in today’s statement.
Elan is on track to record double-digit revenue growth this year and to generate full-year adjusted core profit, it said.
Major shareholders have criticised the direction of the biotechnology group, which has $1.7 billion in debt coming due within the next five years.
Elan recorded a loss per share of 22 US cents in the three months to the end of March versus a loss of 18 cents a year earlier as restructuring charges and research & development costs hit the bottom line.
Total quarterly revenue rose by 14 per cent to $245 million, driven by sales of Tysabri. That compared with analysts' estimates of $252 million.
The group's net loss increased to $102.6 million, compared with $85.5 million in the same period last year.
The company, which said in February it would cut 230 jobs in the United States and Ireland, tried last year to sell its profit-generating drug delivery business, but was unable to complete a transaction amid collapsing credit markets.
Revenues from the drug delivery business fell by 14 per cent in the first quarter.
Elan also said around 40,000 patients were on Tysabri therapy worldwide by the end of March - a figure its US marketing partner Biogen Idec released last week.
Biogen scaled back its original view that 100,000 patients would be on the drug by the end of 2010. It also reported a sixth case of the potentially fatal brain infection progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, last week.
Agencies