Nitromed announced it plans to lay off a majority of its
newly hired BiDil sales force by roughly 70 to 90 employees.
Nitromed doubled its sales force from 30 to
60 specialist reps during the second half of 2007 to boost BiDil. “However,
with only modest improvement in sales, management concluded that it cannot
sustain BiDil marketing efforts alone,” wrote Friedman, Billings, Ramsey &
Co. analyst Robert Uhl in a recent note to investors. Nitromed now expects to
file the NDA for BiDil XR with the FDA in 2010. Nitromed has hired an
investment bank to explore strategic options, which could lead to sale of the
company, Uhl wrote.