Shares of Dendreon continued their sickening southward slide as investors continued to react to the FDA's demand for more data on Provenge before it can be approved. Dendreon stock has shed 69 percent of its value. Interim data from a late-stage study is due in 2008, and some analysts are cautiously optimistic that the company can get an approval with the right results. Final data from that study won't be available until 2010. Other analysts, meanwhile, are beginning to look for the other shoe to drop at Dendreon, speculating that some deep cuts in its operating budget are likely.
CEO Mitchell Gold did nothing to dampen down talks of cuts when he told analysts Thursday afternoon that he was looking at "aligning" the company's 250-man work force with its operational plan. Dendreon lost $33 million in the first quarter of this year, a burn rate that would quickly eliminate its $88 million balance. And Gold added that the company would consider bringing in a marketing partner for the U.S. on Provenge, a move it had resisted up to now.
- read the AP report on Dendreon's woes
- and check out the report from the Seattle Times