Yearly Archive

Yearly Archives: 2013

August 19, 2013 comments

Dendreon proves the risk of investing in “Silver Medal” companies

Once upon a time, getting a drug approved by the FDA was an automatic green light for commercial success.  If a drug was good enough to pass muster with the regulators, it was a virtual certainty it would find favour with physicians, payers and patients.  There was no such thing as market risk for an approved drug.

But times have changed.

Today, winning a regulatory approval in any major jurisdiction is as hard as it has ever been – but garnering that approval is no longer the magic golden ticket it used to be.

Early in 2010, just ahead of the approval of Dendreon’s Provenge the industry consensus was for blockbuster impact. Yesterday, David Nierengarten of Wedbush Securities valued Dendreon at precisely zero (although the market still ascribes a value of around $500m to the company).

More

More
August 14, 2013 no comments

The Man Who Cured Ageing?

When Disraeli supposedly said “The only two certainties …

More

Yearly Archive