Dendreon Corp., maker of the prostate-cancer drug Provenge, rose the most in almost two years after saying fourth-quarter product revenue more than tripled from a year earlier.
Dendreon gained 48 percent to $11.22 at 10:21 a.m. in New York, after earlier climbing 55 percent to $11.74 in the biggest intraday increase since April 2009. Fourth-quarter gross revenue was about $82 million, the Seattle-based biotechnology company said in a statement today. Full-year gross revenue from Provenge was about $228 million.
Provenge, Dendreon’s only product, was approved in April 2010 as the first therapy in the U.S. that trains the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells as if they were a virus. The treatment, which costs $93,000, was cleared for patients with advanced cases of the disease after the company’s three-year effort to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to back the medicine.
“We are pleased with the progress we have made in the launch of Provenge, which — based on its first full year of revenues — places it as one of the top 10 product launches in oncology,” said Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Gold in the statement.
A decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cover the infusion costs associated with the use of Provenge has helped boost sales, the company said.
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