去年Ariad Pharmaceuticals公司業績由于主打抗癌藥物Iclusig被緊急下架而遭受重創。公司一度陷入困境并將其在美國的員工裁員160人，約占美 國分部總員工數的40%，以節省開支。不過現在Ariad Pharmaceuticals公司迎來一絲曙光。公司已經著手將Iclusig重新推向市場。此次Ariad將把Iclusig的適用癥范圍縮小，并在 藥物包裝上標明可能出現的副作用如心臟病、血液凝塊等。不過由于Iclusig適用范圍變小，公司的收入可能也會大受影響。為解決這一問題公司計劃申請重 啟此前被FDA下令暫停的關于Iclusig治療慢性白血病的研究計劃以達到亡羊補牢的作用。
不過Ariad Pharmaceuticals公司的這一系列舉措能否獲得預期效果還需要等待公司2014年*季度財報公布后才能知曉。
詳細英文報道：
Last year, Ariad Pharmaceuticals ($ARIA) watched more than $2.5 billion melt off its market cap when the cancer-fighting Iclusig began a downward spiral that would eventually remove it from the market. But now begins the rebuilding project, as the Cambridge, MA, drugmaker has relaunched its sole product with a lot of ground to make up.
The drug is now indicated for a smaller group of leukemia patients than before, and it carries a serious boxed warning about the risk of clotting and heart failure that got it pulled from shelves in the fall. But it is for sale, and that puts Ariad in a better place than many predicted at its nadir.
"We are back on track," CEO Harvey Berger told Bloomberg last month. "We'll enter 2014 largely where we were as we started off the fall in September."
Of course, that's not entirely the case. Losing more than half of its value forced Ariad to considerably thin its ranks, laying off 40% of its U.S. workforce--or 160 employees--in an effort to save $26 million. Now the company plans to gradually ramp up stateside sales with the help of specialty pharmacy Biologics, Inc., first looking to transition the case-by-case patients who were still using the drug during its marketing hiatus.
And the company has a long way to go on the R&D side. When the storm over Iclusig began, Ariad was in the process of testing the drug in a broader population, but an FDA-imposed clinical hold led the company to discontinue a Phase III study on patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia and put the brakes on a fleet of Phase II studies designed to expand the drug's market. Berger has said that Ariad is yet to decide just how to move forward with its paused programs.
Still, the biotech is undeniably sitting prettier than it was just two months ago, and its next big test will come when Q1 sales figures roll in.——（華雅干細胞整理報道）
