Ardea Lays Off Half of Employees

San Diego-based Ardea Biosciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:RDEA]]) says it has started a corporate restructuring that will reduce its workforce by 47 percent. The company says in their Q1 news release that they are now focused on clinical-stage programs. Ardea had approximately 90 employees. Ardea announced a partnership with Bayer last week in which Ardea takes responsibility for clinical trials of its solid tumor kinase inhibitor treatment. If the trials are successful, Bayer will take over commercialization of the drug.