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Biotech / Medical : Elan Corporation, plc (ELN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William Partmann who wrote (4396)	5/24/2003 2:09:09 AM
From: Icebrg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10345

Bill >> Calling KM a failure is an erroneous statement.>> Oh, you misunderstood me. I don't think he has done a bad job. Not at all. So far so good. For his part the tough job remains though. I.e. giving the company a new strategic direction once the present mess has been sorted out. For the out-sorting he appears to be exactly the right type of person. What I meant was that he typifies the kind of person you absolutely didn't want to see in this position. By appointing him Elan did exactly what you didn't want them to do. If he can have the company sold at say around 10, I wouldn't mind (because then I would at least break even). As for Harold's comments. The board. They were responsible for the mess Elan ended up with. They should have stopped Geaney from leveraging the company so much. They were elected to represent the shareholders and to look after our interests. They failed completely in their mission. There ought to be a lot of blood lett from the highest levels at the next AGM. I would spare Armen though, as he has taken his responsibility. Unfortunately he did it retroactively. But still, I admire him for his work and the energy he put into the efforts to save the company. Marketing. Bill's request was for someone who is competent in marketing strategy. My point was that there is perhaps not so much to put the teeth in at present. Much of the present sales and marketing organisations have been dismantled or sold. There is not much left to work with. Or perhaps there is. Reshaping something useful from the leftovers. Myobloc has been and appears to continue to be a disaster area. In Q4 there were signs (I thought) in the sales figures that there was something going on, but my hopes were dashed already in Q1. It is of course not possible to say if the weak sales are the responsibility of the marketing department or if it is the restricted labelling that has prevented the sales from take off. The sale of the derm business indicates that there are no ambitions on Elan's part to pursue this product any further. Without the potential cosmetic indications, Myobloc is of limited value to Elan and is most probably just about to be sold. Having said all this, the crunching time for a marketing strategist is drawing very close. The main task will be to roll out Antegren in the Crohn's setting. A task no one at Elan and most probably not anyone at partner Biogen either has been even close to. Looking through the list of upper management at Elan it doesn't strike me as evident that there is someone there who could do the job. Hopefully they will bring in someone from the outside for this very important task. (I don't think J&J will just roll over). The main task ahead - as I now consider the company to have been saved (save a complete Antegren disaster, which makes the product unsellable in all its incarnations), is to try to salvage as much of the cash that has been wrought out of the present structures as possible. To just hand it over the the LYONs holders seems like a very bad end to the restructuring efforts. Making them available for just this purpose was of course necessary. If Mssrs Martin and Armen manage to pull that one off, I think even Bill will excuse both. (for having the wrong backgrounds to lead a biopharmaceutical company). Erik