Confidential

November 20, 2009

Via Edgar and Overnight Mail

United States Securities and Exchange Commission
Division of Corporation Finance
100 F Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20549

Attn: Rose Zukin, Staff Attorney
Mail Stop 4720

Re:  ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2008, filed March 16, 2009
Schedule 14A, filed April 30, 2009
File Number: 002-21696

Ladies and Gentlemen:

     On behalf of ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), I received the letter (the “Comment Letter”) dated November 9, 2009, from Jeffrey P. Riedler, Assistant Director, of the Staff of the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission to Dr. Harvey J. Berger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, concerning the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008 and the Company’s definitive proxy statement for the Company’s 2009 annual meeting of stockholders.

     The Company is working diligently on responses to the Comment Letter and intends to submit its responses and the accompanying proposed revised disclosure by December 9, 2009. If you have any questions or comments regarding the Company’s anticipated timing for the submission of its responses, kindly contact the undersigned at (617) 621-2204, or our outside counsel, Scott A. Samuels, Esq. of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., at (617) 348-1798. Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
 

/s/ Raymond T. Keane  

Raymond T. Keane 

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chief
Compliance Officer 

Confidential

cc:	ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc.      Harvey J. Berger, M.D.      Edward M. Fitzgerald
	Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.      Jonathan L. Kravetz, Esq.      Scott A. Samuels, Esq.