The yarns were made by pulling sheets of nanotubes from "forests" of the tubes and twisting them to form a coiled structure - much as yarn is made from wool.
For both modes of crystal fibre, the pattern of holes is generated by stacking hollow glass tubes a millimetre or so in diameter to form a rod several centimetres thick.
Elan pumped money into these entities in the form of investments, and they in turn paid Elan to hire the people with the test tubes and the white lab coats.