Ariad expands in Europe
pharmafile | February 22, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Ariad, leukaemia, leukemia
The new European boss of Ariad Pharmaceuticals has sketched out the US firm’s plans for its next-generation leukaemia drug, which looks as though it will gain EU authorisation in 2013.
Ponatinib, whose planned brand name is Iclusig, was filed in Europe in August, and a decision is expected in the second half of the year. The drug has recently been approved by the FDA.
The company has just made a number of senior hires and Jonathan Dickinson, who started work as Ariad’s European general manager this month, said: “We are getting the infrastructure in place.”
He joined from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he was European brand lead for melanoma drug Yervoy (ipilimumab), responsible for its European launch and commercialisation.
He has also worked at Roche and Novartis, largely in roles which had an oncology focus.
Dickinson is based at Ariad’s European HQ in Lausanne, Switzerland but told Pharmafocus an office will be established in the UK “in the next couple of weeks” although a dedicated country sales force will be small.
“We are evaluating the sales potential at this time to see what the UK would justify,” Dickinson went on. “But we are not going to be talking double digits of sales people.”
Ariad is seeking marketing approval of ponatinib in patients with resistant or intolerant chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL).
It would be entering a highly competitive field which is dominated by tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as Novartis’ Glivec (imatinib), Novartis’ Tasigna (nilotinib) and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Sprycel (dasatinib).
But Ariad is confident ponatinib’s mode of action is different from these brands as it bypasses T315I, the so-called ‘gatekeeper’ mutation in CML and can potentially treat patients with all mutations.
“It’s a great drug to market, highly differentiated and meeting a very significant unmet need,” insisted Dickinson. “We’ll have to see what label we end up achieving with the CHMP but we have a robust life cycle management plan with additional studies.”
Ariad is confident of approval as well as follow-on indications and “potentially other tumour types”, says Dickinson.
Basic R&D will all be carried out from Ariad’s head office in Cambridge, Massachussetts, but Dickinson insists the European arm of the firm will be “heavily involved in research from a clinical perspective”.
Ariad has also hired the country managers for the UK, France, Germany and Italy, which are expected to be the early markets for Iclusig.
Other Ariad appointments in Europe include Anna Casse, former head of Novartis’ nephrology business unit in Germany, who has been made head of marketing and sales.
Anant Murthy has joined from Celgene as Ariad’s head of pricing, reimbursement and access while Kai C. Chan, formerly at Genzyme, is the new head of medical affairs.
Adam Hill
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