UBS analysts said Bristol-Myers Squibb is not in discussions to buy a stake in Elan, Bloomberg reported. Roopesh Patel and Keyur Parekh remarked on Monday that Bristol-Myers Squibb “has confirmed to us that it is not currently in talks to buy a minority stake.”

Shares in Elan rose as much as 10 percent Monday following recent reports that the US drugmaker was one of two serious bidders for a minority stake in Elan, according to people with knowledge of discussions.

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The analysts from UBS explained that both Bristol-Myers Squibb and Elan are focused on specialty drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Patel and Parekh commented that the value of a potential deal would depend on a positive outcome for trials of experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug bapineuzumab, “which in our view has meaningful development risks,” they noted. Bapineuzumab is being jointly developed by Elan and Wyeth, which is in the process of being acquired by Pfizer.

Bristol-Myers Squibb spokesman Brian Henry commented that the company “has no comment on rumours and speculation.” Elan spokeswoman Niamh Lyons declined to comment on the matter as well.

Source: FirstWord

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