The TurnAround in Dendrion ? DNDN Presents at JP Morgan in SFO

Last week Dendreon NASDAQ: DNDN reported stronger than expected sales for Provenge sales at $82 Million generally above "street" consensus expectations. The company has a strong cash balance (approx. $600M) to fund the Provenge launch through to profitability. The stock rallied sharply starting the week at $8 and closing north of $12. This sets the stage for continued expansion for Dendrion and is welcome news for earlier stage cancer immune based therapies in development.

This week the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference begins in San Fransico, Monday through Thursday. Healthcare companies from all over the world converge for a week in meetings with sell side analysts, bankers and institutional portfolio managers.

We have been highlighting the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) efforts as an industry group to highlight the progress that cell based companies have made over the past decade. To this end, ARM has organized a two day mini-conference (we have previously posted the schedule). What's special about the ARM event is that the companies will all present in a panels style format.

Industry leaders like Dendrion (presenting on a panel Wed) will be alongside other earlier stage companies in their market niche such as Immunocellular (IMUC), Coronado (CNDO), PrimaBioMed (PRR.AX) as well as other players in the space. We believe this will be a great venue for investors to learn not only about where Dendrion may be going as a stock, but what's next in the cancer-immunotherapy space.

We will be present throughout the day and blogging on the various panels as we go through the motions of comparing and contrasting the various approaches of the companies. For example we are keenly focused to listen to the cardiology panel where industry leader MesoBlast (MSB) will present alongside NeoStem (Amorcyte-NBS), Athersys (ATHX) and Cytori (CYTX).  Baxter (BAX) will not be present for the panel but investors should take note of their progress (P3 trial in cardiac ischemia).

We believe the next major breakthroughs on the regen side will likely be found in the cardiology space.