Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and the U.K. National Cancer Research Institute to Collaborate on SPIRIT 3 Clinical Study

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) and Newcastle University, U.K., on behalf of the U.K. National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) CML Working Group, today announced an agreement to collaborate on a multicenter, randomized Phase 3 trial, named SPIRIT 3, to assess the impact of switching patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) being treated with a first-line tyrosine kinase inhibitor, upon suboptimal response or treatment failure, to ponatinib. The NCRI expects to begin enrollment in the trial of 1,000 patients at approximately 172 clinical research sites in the U.K. in the second quarter of 2013.