Elan shares have taken a bit of a beating in the past few weeks, falling from a high of $60 (€69.77) to around $48. But that really only brings Elan back to the sort of earnings multiples enjoyed by many other pharmaceutical companies, so investors shouldn't be too concerned. After all, anybody who bought into Elan a year ago has more than doubled their money.

But this morning Elan shareholders might get some good news with a possible announcement from the compilers of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices that Elan is being included in its paneuro index from the end of this month. MSCI was due to announce changes to the index after the end of New York trading last night.

Merrill Lynch has tipped Elan to be included in the MSCI index with a projected weighting of 0.16 per cent. That might not sound like an awful lot for a company that makes up almost a quarter of the main Irish market index. But, given the number of index and tracker funds that use MSCI as their benchmark, it could represent quite a significant new investor base for Elan. That can only help the share price.