As freshly reported in the WSJ Health Blog, the eagerly awaited Medicare analysis of the company’s cancer therapy Provenge found “moderate” evidence that the therapy can improve outcomes.
Leerink Swann analyst Howard Liang said in a research note that while the “moderate” characterization of the evidence “was not necessarily an outright endorsement, [the report] did not raise a serious challenge to Provenge’s benefit and concerns about imperfections of the trial design were well known.” The analysis doesn’t seem to offer a basis for restricting coverage to some subgroup of the patients for whom it’s been approved, he wrote.
That's all it takes in terms of an endorsement to send Dendreon shares up and to bolster spirits of prostate patients waiting on Provenge (at least from reimbursement angle).
Posted by Bruce Lehr November 11th 2010.
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