Boston, MA 05/13/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ:DNDN) has recently commenced sale of Provenge, its vaccine that can prevent prostrate cancer. This news has brought a lot of hope in the market.
More about the development
This drug is seen as a watershed development in the area of cancer cure. It has received marketing permission in Europe and is now being used in patients at an advanced stage of prostrate cancer. The drug has been launched in Europe with the first phase covering Germany and the United Kingdom.
Provenge is the flagship product of Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ:DNDN) and is built in a way that it can re-program the immune cells of the human body to combat cancer cells, even in the advanced stage of prostrate cancer.
Prostate cancer is said to be the second most dangerous cause of cancer death in men, in the United States, second only to lung cancer.
The American Cancer Society has come up with a research stating that approximately 233,000 fresh cases of prostrate cancer are likely to be diagnosed in the country in this year alone.
The treatment, however, has failed to survive the expectations of the client base owing to the company’s constrained production capacity, issues pertaining to quality, competition from other similar drugs and very little clarity over insurance coverage.
The rise of simpler competitor drugs such as Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga and Medivation Inc’s Xtandi has also exerted pressure on off take of sales of this vaccine, even though it was approved by the American regulatory authorities way back.
Other developments
Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ:DNDN) is likely to cut down its yearly costs by $125 million. Even as the company is struggling to ramp up sales of its much talked about cancer vaccine, it plans to cut down nearly 150 jobs in a fresh round of organizational restructuring.
The company had come to an agreement to settle the legal suit pending in the District Court against it. The settlement aims at resolving the claims levied against the defendants. The consideration for the settlement is $40 million, out of which $38 million will come from insurers of Dendreon.
