Healthcare Industry News: PHOENIX
News Release - October 2, 2007
ARIAD Names Vice President, Clinical Operations to Further Enhance Global Clinical Development Efforts
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA ) today announced the appointment of Ross D. Pettit, to the newly created position of vice president, clinical operations. In this role, Mr. Pettit will be responsible for overseeing the planning and implementation of a wide range of operational activities for ARIAD's clinical development programs. Mr. Pettit brings nearly twenty years of experience to ARIAD in the areas of pharmaceutical drug development, regulatory affairs, and clinical operations."The recruitment of Mr. Pettit to our senior management team is very timely as we are in the midst of expanding our clinical development activities globally for deforolimus and planning the initiation of clinical trials for AP24534," said Pierre F. Dodion, M.D., senior vice president, oncology. "Our team will be further enhanced by his broad technical and operational expertise in running large multi-national clinical trials, allowing us to implement our global development programs in a timely fashion."
Since 2002, Mr. Pettit held a series of senior positions at Coley Pharmaceuticals Group, Inc., most recently as vice president, clinical operations, working closely with Coley's oncology partner, Pfizer, Inc. Previously, he held medical affairs, regulatory and clinical development positions at Serono, Inc., as well as clinical research positions at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. and Parexel International Corp.
Mr. Pettit received his M.B.A. from the University of PHOENIX in Arizona and his B.Sc. from Kingston University in London.
About ARIAD
ARIAD is engaged in the discovery and development of breakthrough medicines to treat cancer by regulating cell signaling with small molecules. ARIAD is developing a comprehensive approach to patients with cancer that addresses the greatest medical need - aggressive and advanced-stage cancers for which current treatments are inadequate. ARIAD has a global partnership with Merck & Co., Inc. to develop and commercialize deforolimus, ARIAD's lead cancer product candidate. Medinol Ltd. is also developing stents and other medical devices that deliver deforolimus to prevent reblockage at sites of vascular injury following stent-assisted angioplasty. ARIAD has an exclusive license to pioneering technology and patents related to certain NF-(kappa)B treatment methods, and the discovery and development of drugs to regulate NF-(kappa)B cell-signaling activity, which may be useful in treating certain diseases. Additional information about ARIAD can be found on the web at http://www.ariad.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements," including statements related to the expansion of clinical development activities for deforolimus and initiation of clinical trials for AP24534. Forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events, timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the costs associated with our research, development, manufacturing and other activities, the conduct and results of pre-clinical and clinical studies of our product candidates, difficulties or delays in obtaining regulatory approvals to market products resulting from our development efforts, our reliance on partners, including Medinol and Merck, and other key parties for the successful development, manufacturing and commercialization of products, the adequacy of our capital resources and the availability of additional funding, patent protection and third-party intellectual property claims relating to our and any partner's product candidates, the timing, scope, cost and outcome of legal and patent office proceedings concerning our NF-(kappa)B patent portfolio, the potential acquisition of or other strategic transaction regarding the minority stockholders' interests in our 80%-owned subsidiary, ARIAD Gene Therapeutics, Inc., future capital needs, key employees, markets, economic conditions, prices, reimbursement rates, competition and other factors detailed in the Company's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The information contained in this document is believed to be current as of the date of original issue. The Company does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this document to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in the Company's expectations, except as required by law.
Source: ARIAD Pharmaceuticals
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