Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Second Cancer Drug Found Safer Than Expected in Early Review of Key Study

Ariad Pharmaceuticals CEO Harvey Berger has been fielding questions from investors for months about how much toxicity his company’s experimental cancer drug might be causing to the pancreas. The final verdict isn’t in yet, but an interim analysis being released today suggests the drug is safer than most thought it would be. The preliminary results come from a pivotal study known as PACE, which is projected to enroll 450 leukemia patients on ponatinib, a drug candidate from Cambridge, MA-based Ariad (NASDAQ: ARIA). A previous trial showed that about 12 percent of patients on the Ariad drug developed a serious adverse event known as pancreatitis, when they got doses that ranged as high as 60 milligrams once a day.

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