Acorda Will Cut 20 Percent of Workforce After Patent Case Loss

By Michelle Fay Cortez, Bloomberg News

Acorda Therapeutics Inc. will cut about 20 percent of its workforce and restructure its operations to focus on two Parkinson’s disease drugs after a legal ruling last month put its best-selling medicine Ampyra at risk for generic competition next year.

The firings will save $21 million annually, starting this quarter, the Ardsley, New York-based company said in a statement Wednesday. About 100 positions will be eliminated, in a restructuring to help the biotechnology company cover the cost of getting its lead pipeline drug, CVT-301, onto the U.S. market and to complete studies needed for the approval of a second drug, tozadenant, both for Parkinson’s disease.

Acorda ...