Ariad Pharmaceuticals founder Harvey J. Berger has announced he will retire as CEO and chairman of the firm.
Berger founded Ariad 23 years ago and has served as its chairman and CEO since 1991, leading the company’s growth into an integrated global oncology firm.
Commenting on his time with Ariad, Berger said: “I am proud to have worked with so many incredibly talented employees and together to have achieved so much for cancer patients in need of new treatment options where none exist.
“Ariad has been at the forefront of precision medicine initiatives in cancer, and I expect that the Company will continue to lead the way as new targeted therapies emerge from our drug-discovery platform – built on our computational and structural technologies.”
Under his leadership, Ariad brought Iclusig to the market for the treatment of patients with refractory chronic myeloid leukaemia and Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, approved in the US, EU, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and Israel.
Marty Duvall, executive VP and chief commercial officer at Ariad, added: “Harvey enthusiastically embraced the evolution of ARIAD into a global commercial company. His pride, satisfaction and commitment to deliver on the vision of transforming patient-lives motivates the commercial team each and every day.”