ELAN Corporation, the Athlone-based biotechnology firm, is under pressure to abandon further development of its treatment for Alzheimer’s.

This follows negative findings from a leading scientist that showed the brains of patients who were being treated for the disease shrank when they were expected to expand.

An earlier decision to abandon the first phase of Alzheimer’s testing was partly responsible for the collapse of Elan’s share price in 2001. The firm has seen its share price seesaw in the past two weeks. Its shares closed at €16.85 in Dublin on Friday, valuing the company at €6.6 billion. The shares have fallen by more than 17% in the past two weeks.

Nick Fox, a scientist at the Institute of Neurology in London who had been commissioned by Elan to conduct tests on patients who were undergoing trials in 2001, has revealed scans showing the brain volumes of patients who had been treated by the Elan drug had actually shrunk when they would have been expected to expand.

The revelation came at the Elan-sponsored 9th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders in Philadelphia.

“It led to a palpable sense of ‘I told you so’ and some snickering,” said Gabrielle Strobel, the managing editor of the Alzheimer Research Forum (ARF), an independent not-for-profit organisation that publishes an in-depth online magazine on the disease. “It left the presenters a bit sheepish as they tried to explain the paradox of how it could be that a treatment can stabilise thinking while apparently reducing grey matter.”

In a recent opinion survey conducted by the ARF, 62% of experts in the field registered their opposition to Elan’s approach.

Elan acknowledged that Fox had described his findings as “unexpected” but said he had only been commenting on one aspect of the study and that overall results had been encouraging.

“There were many cognitive improvements including increased memory, and that had never happened before,” said Anita Kawatra, Elan’s vice-president of global media relations. “We are continuing to pursue the immunotherapy approach and we are very encouraged by the results.”

Fox was unavailable for comment this weekend.

Elan’s approach to the treatment of the disease has divided the scientific community.

Peter Davies, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said Fox’s findings had dealt another blow to the initial results, which had been far from impressive.

Davies said Elan should reconsider doing further tests on human beings.

“I would vigorously oppose doing this again because, even where it did not produce serious side effects, it did not seem to help either. In mice it’s great science but not in people.”

However, Peter Jackson, an analyst at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin, said he was continuing to recommend Elan as a buy even though last week the company reported an increased loss in Q2, as revenues fell and costs rose.

“If you put two scientists in a room you are invariably going to get an argument,” he said.