THE pharmaceutical development group Elan Corporation has continued its strong, growth in the three months to the end of December, with, after tax profits of $30.9 million and earnings of 31 cents per share.

In the nine months to the end of December, after tax profits rose from $62.3 million to $87.3 million while turnover jumped from $153.4 million to $235.6 million. The big jump in turnover reflects the first time contribution from the £400 million Athena Neurosciences acquisition last year.

But the acquisition of Athena and Advanced Therapeutic Systems resulted in "huge once off write offs of research and development expenditure and rationalisation costs.

While these are essentially a tidying up of the group's balance sheet following the acquisitions, they resulted in a $659.9 million write off and a net loss for the nine months of $572.6 million.

Elan has reported increased sales in each of its three core activities: product sales, research revenues and royalties/fees.

Product sales were up from $64.7 million to $118 million in the nine months, while underlying sales growth was 30 per cent when the impact of the Athena acquisition is excluded.

This increased organic growth came largely through sales of Naprelan, Herbesser, Cardizem and Theodur.

Royalties and fees in the nine months were up from $62.5 million to $71.9 million, largely as a result of income from Naprelan and Diltiazem in the US and Japan.

Research revenues were up from $26.2 million to $45.6 million, while Elan's cash pile produced interest income of $19.9 million up from $15.4 million.

The results from Elan were in line with market forecasts and the shares were trading slightly up on $38.50 on the New York market.