NitroMed Ends BiDil Marketing, Slashes Staff

Malorye wrote back in November that the future of BiDil, the controversial heart-failure drug approved specifically for African Americans, was resting on a new marketing plan from manufacturer NitroMed (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NTMD]]). Looks like that plan has failed. The Lexington, MA-based firm announced yesterday after the market’s close that it was slashing its staff from 90 to 20 and discontinuing promotional efforts for the drug (although it will continue to make BiDil available to patients). NitroMed is continuing development of a once-daily version of the drug, but doesn’t plan to file for approval of that product until 2010.

Author: Rebecca Zacks

Rebecca is Xconomy's co-founder. She was previously the managing editor of Physician's First Watch, a daily e-newsletter from the publishers of New England Journal of Medicine. Before helping launch First Watch, she spent a decade covering innovation for Technology Review, Scientific American, and Discover Magazine's TV show. In 2005-2006 she was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rebecca holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Brown University and a master's in science journalism from Boston University. View all posts by Rebecca Zacks