Mr Tom Lynch has stepped down from his role as director and vice-chairman at Elan after just under a decade with the company.

He joined Elan in 1993, just as the company was beginning to generate annual revenues of more than $100 million (€101 million).

Initially taking on the role of executive vice-president and chief financial officer, Mr Lynch became a company director in 1997 at the age of 42.

Like fellow-departee, Mr Donal Geaney, Mr Lynch had previously been a partner in accountancy firm, KPMG, where he specialised in international corporate financial services.

In May 2000, Mr Lynch made a paper profit of more than $19 million after exercising share options at prices of $7.81 to $8.31. Within the last seven months, however, he has seen the 800,000 shares he held in the company at the end of last year lose more than $30 million.

Mr Lynch has also taken a hit in the remaining 1.3 million options he held to buy Elan shares as of December last. The paper value of these options has since fallen by around $37 million.

Balancing this pain, however, is the $1.6 million that Mr Lynch was paid by Elan in 2001. This included a basic salary of almost $700,000, a bonus of $825,000 and a pension payment of $113,000.

Since March 2000, he has held a non-executive chairmanship at related pharmaceutical company, Amarin, and he retains directorships at Irish clinical trials group, Icon, and IDA Ireland.

Until February this year, Mr Lynch was also on the board of pharmaceutical group, Galen, in which Elan holds a stake.

This followed Galen's acquisition of US company Warner Chilcott, of which Mr Lynch was founder.

This role ended five months ago with Galen chairman, Mr John King, citing Mr Lynch's other work commitments.