ARIAD Announces Appointment of Senior Oncology Executive to Leadership Team.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) today announced the appointment of Pierre F. Dodion, M.D., to the newly created position of senior vice president, oncology. In this role, Dr. Dodion will lead medical research, medical affairs, clinical operations, drug safety and pharmacovigilence and biostatistics and outcomes research at ARIAD. He will oversee the oncology clinical development programs for ARIAD's lead product candidates - its novel mTOR inhibitor, AP23573, and its novel multi-targeted kinase inhibitor, AP24534 and will establish a medical affairs function to support U.S. marketing of oncology products. Dr. Dodion has over twenty-five years of experience in the global pharmaceutical industry and academia, most recently as executive director, oncology at Pfizer, Inc.

"As an experienced pharmaceutical industry executive and medical oncologist, Dr. Dodion's appointment highlights our commitment to excellence in global clinical development and the magnitude of the clinical development programs we envision for our lead product candidates in the coming years. He will have primary responsibility for our collaborative clinical programs on AP23573 working closely with our anticipated pharmaceutical partner," said Harvey J. Berger, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer of ARIAD.

Dr. Dodion has held senior medical and clinical development positions at Pfizer, Inc. (executive director, oncology), Novartis A.G. (executive director, global strategy and global marketing, oncology business unit), Aventis S.A. (senior medical director), UCB S.A. (head, cardiovascular clinical development operations) and Roche AG (clinical leader) and has supervised over three hundred clinical trials. He has led the successful worldwide regulatory approval for a leading adjuvant treatment for breast cancer and managed strategic planning and product evaluation activities in oncology at several of these companies. Previously, he was head, chemotherapy unit, Institut Jules Bordet, Free University of Brussels, Belgium and an international visiting fellow of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Dodion received his M.D. degree from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium and his executive M.B.A. from St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is certified by the Board of Internal Medical and Oncology (Brussels, Belgium) and by the European Board of Medical Oncology (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Program Scholarship and NATO Collaborative Research Grant.

About ARIAD

ARIAD is engaged in the discovery and development of breakthrough medicines to treat cancer by regulating cell signaling with small molecules. The Company is developing a comprehensive approach to patients with cancer that addresses the greatest medical need - aggressive and advanced-stage cancers for which current treatments are inadequate. Medinol Ltd. also is developing stents and other medical devices that deliver ARIAD's lead cancer product candidate to prevent reblockage at sites of vascular injury following stent-assisted angioplasty. ARIAD has an exclusive license to pioneering technology and patents related to certain NF-kB treatment methods, and the discovery and development of drugs to regulate NF-kB cell-signaling activity, which may be useful in treating certain diseases. Additional information about ARIAD can be found on the web at http://www.ariad.com.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements," including statements related to our anticipated partnership for AP23573. Forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events, timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the costs associated with our research, development, manufacturing and other activities, the conduct and results of pre-clinical and clinical studies of our product candidates, difficulties or delays in obtaining regulatory approvals to market products resulting from our development efforts, our reliance on partners and other key parties for the successful development, manufacturing and commercialization of products, the adequacy of our capital resources and the availability of additional funding, patent protection and third-party intellectual property claims relating to our and any partner's product candidates, the timing, scope, cost and outcome of legal and patent office proceedings concerning our NF-kB patent portfolio, the potential acquisition of or other strategic transaction regarding the minority stockholders' interests in our 80%-owned subsidiary, ARIAD Gene Therapeutics, Inc., future capital needs, key employees, markets, economic conditions, prices, reimbursement rates, competition and other factors detailed in the Company's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The information contained in this document is believed to be current as of the date of original issue. The Company does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this document to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in the Company's expectations, except as required by law.