Elan has won shareholder approval for the $370 million (€366.37 million) sale of the rights to its Abelcet treatment to US company Enzon. The Irish drugs group said yesterday it hoped to announce further asset disposals before Christmas.

"There is a reasonable probability that we will announce several," Elan's executive chairman, Dr Garo Armen, said after the extraordinary meeting to approve the deal.

He also said Elan had identified a new chief executive to take over at the helm of the troubled company although he declined to say who it was. "We are hoping that person will be on board by February 1st and so far everything looks good in that regard," said Dr Armen.

He added that Elan had not approached Mr Rolf Stahel, the departing chief executive of Shire Pharmaceuticals, noting Elan was well advanced in its search before Mr Stahel became available.

It has not yet been decided where the new chief executive will be based but Dr Armen said he would spend "a fair amount of time" in Dublin and on the US west coast where Elan also has operations. The company intends to keep its Athlone facility although Dr Armen said it might bring in a partner to take up some of the unused capacity there.

He also repeated that Elan expected to beat its own target of raising $1.5 billion from asset disposals by the end of next year.

"It's a rare event that these types of asset come up for sale and there are a significant number of companies out there that are cash rich," Dr Armen said.

He noted that there were eight bidders for the US, Canadian and Japanese rights to Abelcet, which were sold to US-based Enzon in October.

Because the value of the Abelcet deal exceeded 25 per cent of the market capitalisation of the company, it required shareholder approval. Following completion of the Abelcet transaction, Elan will have around $1 billion in its coffers.

He told shareholders that over the 2004 to 2009 period, the company planned to introduce a blockbuster drug or an extension to an existing product almost every year.

Shares in Elan were mixed yesterday, losing 12 cents to €2.22 in Dublin. In New York, where they are mainly traded, they were up 6.7 per cent at $2.23.