A year after the approval of prostate cancer treatment Provenge, Dendreon
The FDA signed off on the expansion of Dendreon's New Jersey facility in March, allowing it to quadruple the output from that facility. Provenge is tailor-made for each patient using their own cells, so it can't be stockpiled.
In April, the company produced $15 million of Provenge, compared to an average of just $9.4 million in the first three months of the year. That's not exactly a quadrupling because the company is taking a measured approach to the expansion.
Dendreon expects to gain FDA approval for a new manufacturing site in the Los Angeles area by June 30 and approval of a third site in Atlanta in late Aug. or early Sep. Bringing all of the new workstations on-line in New Jersey before then would be a waste because the patients coming in would just shift to the new facilities, requiring layoffs in New Jersey. The measured approach is the right way to go about it even if it doesn't maximize revenue immediately.
For the year, Dendreon is still guiding for revenue between $350 million and $400 million. Approximately half of that is expected in the fourth quarter, which equates to between $58 million and $67 million per month in Q4. With all three facilities up and running by then, hopefully Dendreon isn't still breaking out monthly figures.
Assuming Dendreon hits its numbers, where does it go in 2012? Provenge's only real competition at the moment is sanofi-aventis'
Monthly numbers or not, it's clear the brakes are coming off.
Looking for the Dendreon of the new technology revolution? Grab this free report and find out which company Fool analysts think will win.
