A DRUG research centre with 120 scientists and 130 support staff is being planned for Dublin, the first of its kind anywhere in Ireland, the pharmaceutical company Elan said yesterday. The Irish firm has already started looking for a site for a custom built laboratory, where it will work on a cure for the debilitating Alzheimer's disease.
The company's chief financial officer, Mr Tom Lynch, said Elan sought a 10 acre site, within a reasonable distance from the main Dublin universities. The firm already sponsors 50 scientists in Trinity College and has contributed to the building of the new pharmacy department.
"We continue to see Ireland as a major part of our business, and we would like to establish at least one discovery facility here," Mr Lynch said yesterday.
Elan employs 750 people in Athlone, a further 50 in Dublin, and 700 more, mainly in the United States.
The company said it was now focusing on diseases of the central nervous system which would include Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and planned to be a world leader in the area within five years.
In February, Elan's wholly owned subsidiary Athena and US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly signed an agreement to extend their research collaboration in the field of Alzheimer's disease, which began in 1988, to August 1998.
"There are four million cases of Alzheimer's in the United States, eight to 10 million in the world," said Mr Lynch. "About 25 per cent of all people over 80 years of age get Alzheimer's, and with life expectancy increasing, so is the incidence of the disease."
The disease, which effects memory is believed to be mainly hereditary.
In the United States, scientists working on Elan's research project, with Eli Lilly have replicated the disease in mice, and developed a drug which inhibits its development.
Comparing the proteins that build around the human neurosystem in Alzheimer's to the plaque that develops on teeth to cause decay, Mr Lynch said the drug being developed, if it worked, would be able to clear away the `plaque' and halt the progress of the disease.
While this might not cure or reverse the condition, he said, it would mean that people would be able to prevent their health from deteriorating. It would be a major new market for Elan.
