Elan Shares Rise on J&J Investment

Updated with stock quote and background information on bapineuzumab

Elan(ELN Quote) shares rose Thursday after health care giant Johnson & Johnson(JNJ Quote) said it was spending $1 billion to acquire a minority stake in the Irish drug maker and take over development of Elan's Alzheimer's disease drugs.

J&J will create a new company, initially seeded with $500 million, which will acquire Elan's rights to Alzheimer's drugs being developed in partnership with Wyeth(WYE Quote). In exchange, Elan receives 49.9% of the newly formed company.

J&J will own 18.4% of Elan once the deal closes later this year. ...