is cancer vaccine treatment worth the cost?, page-5

Ems

I don't know for a fact, but it may have something to do with the terms of reference when conducting trials to prove a certain outcome.

In other words, once you proceed down a certain track, you need to follow that track to its final conclusion. I would guess that if you changed the terms of reference mid-stream, there may be a requirement to go back to the beginining (which would be time-consuming and costly).

That's about the only explanation I can think of. See below and you will discover that Dendreon is now attempting to prove that Provenge is as beneficial - if not more so - in treating early stage prostate victims.

I would imagine Prima doing something similar - if not precisely the same - with C-Vac.

As has been suggested many times before, the heavy-lifting undertaken by Dendreon has cleared the way for Prima. So without having expended the energy, time or finance to get to the same point, Martin Rogers and co. are now primed to take full advantage.

.... Provenge works by boosting the patient's immune system and giving it the ability to kill cancer cells. Virtually everyone in the medical and cancer research world hopes and expects that when given to men in earlier stage disease, (men with healthier immune sysytems to start with) that its life-extending effects will be even more dramatic. Earlier stage patients are going to be absolutely clamoring to get Provenge from their doctors once the Provenge story has spread wide. And doctors are going to be hard pressed to deny them, because there is so little to lose by doing so. Provenge has almost no side effects--a day or two of flu-like symptoms, while at the same time there is the prospect of dramatic life extension for the patient. Most importantly for investors in Dendreon, over 200,000 men are diagnosed each year with early stage disease in the U.S.--and thus the potential market for early stage Provenge is huge.

And it just so happens that Dendreon already has a Phase three study going on in men with earlier stage disease. While it is not a pivotal registration study designed to obtain FDA approval, there is still the prospect that if it produces good results in delaying the spread of cancer it could lead to a Compendia listing for Provenge for earlier stage disease. This could lead to widespread "off label" prescription--which could lead to a decision by Medicare to cover "off label". Further, should positive results be reported in a peer reviewed journal--as they almost surely would, that alone would require Medicare coverage for "off label" prescriptions of Provenge under the New York Court's recent ruling.

This could speed the movement of Provenge into the treatment of earlier stage disease by YEARS. The earlier stage market is many multiples of that for late stage prostate cancer. Dendreon could be looking at a $10 Billion annual market for Provenge.

Current analyst models are looking only at the late stage market. Nothing is granted to the potential for movement into earlier stage disease. Should that potential pan out, the shares would rightly rocket.

Disclosure: I am long DNDN.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/262803-why-provenge-could-be-a-10-billion-drug-for-dendreon


And for those who are wondering, here's a five-year chart for Dendreon.