For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 14, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: American International Group (AIG), Morgan Stanley (MS), Elan Corporation (ELN), Biogen Idec (BIIB) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

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Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

AIG to Sell Taiwan Life Unit

American International Group (AIG) said on Monday that it has decided to sell its stake of almost 98% in Taiwan life insurance unit Nan Shan Life Insurance Co. for about $2.2 billion to a group led by Hong Kong-based

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Elan Corporation (ELN) recently received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the company’s disclosure of two brain disorder cases (in July 2008), often fatal, tied to the use of its drug Tysabri for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Elan has a marketing agreement with Biogen Idec (BIIB) for Tysabri. In addition, the subpoena asked for detailed information regarding clinical trial data on bapineuzumab, a drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Recently, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) paid $885 million for an 18.4% stake in Elan in addition to $500 million for a majority stake in the company’s Alzheimer's disease pipeline. As a reminder, in July last year, both Elan and Biogen announced the occurrence of two cases of brain infection, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), in patients taking the drug. Meanwhile, 11 such cases have been reported by the companies ...

The FDA has published a table with the names of products and potential signals of serious risks and/or new safety information identified for these products during 1Q08 in the AERS database. The FDA notes that patients should not stop taking these medications and should consult their prescriber with any questions as the agency will investigate each of the claims further before taking action or issuing more definitive statements on the reported concerns. Some highlights from this table of products that are sold by public-traded pharma and biotech companies are listed below in the following format: active ingredient (brand name) - company(ies) - new safety information reported. Duloxetine (Cymbalta) - Eli Lilly (LLY) - Urinary retention Heparin - Baxter (BAX) & APP Pharma (APPX) - Anaphylactic-type reactions Lapatinib (Tykerb) - GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – Liver toxicity Lenalidomide (Revlimid) - Celgene (CELG) – ...