Commenting on Elan's business,Kelly Martin, Elan's president and chief executive officer, said, "We continued to demonstrate successful execution and delivery of tangible results in the first quarter. We remain highly focused on advancing our mid to late stage clinical pipeline as well as supporting physicians and their patients in choosing Tysabri in MS and also now in Crohn's. Our disciplined management and the repeatability of our scientific process combined with risk minimization enable Elan to pursue a unique pathway forward in what remains a challenging and changing global industry environment."

Commenting on Elan's first quarter financial results, Shane Cooke, Elan's executive vice president and chief financial officer, said, "We are very pleased with the strong start to the year, highlights of which include: a 22% increase in revenues; the approval and launch of Tysabri in Crohn's disease; the continued advancement of our development pipeline; and strong cost control reflected in an 18% reduction in SG&A costs, which more than offset increased R&D costs." Cooke added, "We are particularly pleased to see the acceleration in the number of new patients who are benefiting from Tysabri, with over 26,000 on therapy at the end of March 2008. This increase underscores our confidence that Elan's total revenues for this year will approach the $1 billion mark and that we will achieve our target of having 100,000 patients on Tysabri therapy by the end of 2010."