FDA approval gives strength to battered Titan

May 29, 2009

Titan Pharmaceuticals Inc. — delisted, diminished and down to three employees after the rejection of two drugs last year — has rehired its senior executives after the FDA approved a partner’s potential billion-dollar schizophrenia drug.
Marc Rubin, Sunil Bhonsle and Katherine Beebe reupped with Titan after iloperidone — a drug licensed by the South San Francisco company 12 years ago and sublicensed twice since then — won Food and Drug Administration approval May 6. The approval gives Titan more time to find a partner for its only remaining program, a late-stage treatment for opioid addiction.
“There are many possible directions,” said Bhonsle, now Titan’s president. “Last year, the only direction was to conserve capital, sell assets and things like that.”