Nitromed announced it plans to lay off a majority of itsnewly hired BiDil sales force by roughly 70 to 90 employees.

Nitromed doubled its sales force from 30 to60 specialist reps during the second half of 2007 to boost BiDil. “However,with only modest improvement in sales, management concluded that it cannotsustain BiDil marketing efforts alone,” wrote Friedman, Billings, Ramsey &Co. analyst Robert Uhl in a recent note to investors. Nitromed now expects tofile the NDA for BiDil XR with the FDA in 2010. Nitromed has hired aninvestment bank to explore strategic options, which could lead to sale of thecompany, Uhl wrote.