Dendreon's New Double-Twist

Dendreon (DNDN-NASDAQ) has an interesting twist this morning because of two issues.  Yesterday it announced some new study data on PROVENGE at The American Urological Association on Sunday.  The company’s board has also approved a lay off of 40 workers to save cash burn rates, so it has two new datapoints today.

The abstract, "Advanced Prostate Cancer Patients who Receive Sipuleucel-T followed by Docetaxel Have Prolonged Survival," was authored by Daniel P. Petrylak, M.D., associate professor of medicine at New York- Presbyterian Hospital at the Columbia University Medical Center.  It is based on an exploratory analysis conducted to assess the influence of the active cellular immunotherapy PROVENGE on the clinical outcome of patients who subsequently went on to receive docetaxel chemotherapy after primary treatment with PROVENGE. The analysis was conducted by evaluating data from two Phase 3 clinical trials of PROVENGE in patient with asymptomatic, metastatic, androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC). 

Petralyk is noting that this 82 patient study shows the potentiality that PROVENGE could be used in conjunction with first-lines of defense to treat prostate cancer.  According to the analysis, the patients who received initial treatment with PROVENGE followed by docetaxel had a median survival of 34.5 months compared to 25.4 months for those patients in the placebo arm who received treatment with docetaxel chemotherapy, a 9.1 month difference. In addition, an analysis of overall survival demonstrated that patients in the PROVENGE arm who received subsequent therapy with docetaxel had a 47 percent reduction in their risk of death compared to those in the placebo arm who received subsequent therapy with docetaxel.

The 40 layoffs will result in an 18% workforce cut and will result in $1.5 million in cash charges and about $300,000 in non-cash charges.  Shares of Dendreon are up close to 8% at $6.53 in pre-market activity.

Jon C. Ogg
May 21, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.