I'm not really enjoying my "day off" so far here in rather gloomy, cool L.A. as I've been kept pretty busy trying to chase down the Dendreon story.
The shares are hitting a new intra-day high on heavy volume on word that the American Urological Association is saving a seat at the table for DNDN at its annual meeting the end of this month.
The stock started moving this morning when that information was posted on the AUA's website. I started getting tweets on Twitter and emails from Dendreonians calling the news, volume and movement to my attention.
I ran it down with calls to Dendreon, the AUA and Dendreon's outside PR. Got quick calls back from all of them, but DNDN CFO Greg Shiffman was the first to get back to me.
He said he didn't see why this was creating so much buzz.
Yes, he confirmed, AUA has given the company a "placeholder" to present the highly anticipated Provenge data in a prestigious "late breaker" session if they're ready in time for the event. But that will only happen in the event the clinical trial results are available by then. Shiffman pointed out that the company has been saying the data were expected sometime in April.
Shiffman also told me Dendreon does not have a similar placeholder at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting which takes place about a month later.
Interestingly, the placeholder info seems to have been taken off the AUA website. I have a call into the organization about that and I will update the blog if/when I hear back. I suspect it was at the company's request given the frenzy it triggered.
Never a dull moment.
UPDATE: A DNDN spokesperson says the company did not request that the AUA remove the info from its website. An AUA spokesperson says it was taken down by mistake and is now back up.
Check this out:
- Dendreon Shares Soar Over Good News On Provenge
- CNBC.com Slideshow: Medical Marijuana
- Track Dow Jones Healthcare Index Here
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