Icos's war of attrition

Icos Corp. is relying on a broad pipeline of products, and multiple clinical trials with each product, to overcome the high rate of attrition inherent in drug development. With last week's setbacks involving LeukArrest and Pafase, ICOS has had more failures than successes to date. However, the company's pharma-like strategy includes the refinement of product development programs through early stage trials in more indications than will be successful.

"We have always anticipated that this would be the case," said Thomas St. John, vice president of therapeutic development. "We expected a number of them to fall by the wayside, either because the data is negative or isn't as good as in some other area. We're trimming some of the indications that have not been fruitful - it's important that we manage the risk of the clinical studies."...