Hedge Funds to Cancer Patients: “Die.”

December 4th, 2008 by Patrick Byrne

Dendreon Corp. is a Seattle, Washington-based biotech company that researches treatments for cancer. Their approach is novel in that the dirty work is done by harnessing the body’s monoclonal antibodies (I happen to have heard of these because my scrawny tomboy high school chum grew up to be a ridiculously attractive Ph.D. at NCI researching non-idiotypic monoclonal antibodies, at which point she gave me the brush-off: such is life).

I have no idea if their approach works or not, but Dendreon has created a drug, Provenge, to  treat asymptomatic, metastatic, and androgen-independent prostate cancer. Provenge has completed two Phase III clinical trials, so someone thinks it works.

In any case, the decision as to the correct price of Dendreon’s equity (and hence, the terms on which it can raise capital to fund its research) is supposed to be made by the collective wisdom of investors expressed through a marketplace operating under the rule of law. In fact, however, for some length of time and to some significant degree, the pricing of its equity has instead been determined by some hedge fund guys who think cancer patients should die so they can take ski trips to Gstaad.

Note that this firm, which in most weeks sees 2 million shares trade, accumulated at one point 18 million failures.

Please go to http://www.deepcapture.com/...ancer-patients-die/
to see full chart

Again, that is just failures in the CNS crack, there being a number of other cracks in the settlement system (cracks into which the public is not allowed to peer because, says the SEC, it would reveal the strategies of the hedge funds doing this).

Incidentally, this is as fine an example as one will ever see of what economists call, “the problem of dispersed costs and concentrated benefits.” The SEC’s stance against the rule of law creates a cost that is imposed on dispersed people who do not know who they are (people who are going to get prostate cancer 5 years from now do not know who they are today). Yet the SEC’s stance against the rule of law creates a benefit for some people who do know who they are today, and so can afford to hire those lobbyists with whom my colleague Jonathan Johnson regularly crosses paths in DC, and hire the white-shoe law firms with whom I do battle in California, and support shill academics such as Owen Lamont and Arturo Bris, and stroke compliant journalists such as Joe Nocera, Bethany McLean, Roddy Boyd, Jim Cramer, and Carol Remond, and can extend job offers to ex-regulators and ex-journalists such as Richard Sauer, Herb Greenberg, and Karen Richardson.

God Bless America.

Posted in 9) The Deep Capture Campaign |

11 Responses

1. clearthinker Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

   if the Dems are serious about fixing healthcare, they should start here….and while they are at it , trade settlement would put trillions in the hands of the public and jum start this economy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Since Shapiro is advising Obama, how about pressing this point…

2. Hang_'em_High Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

   Dr. Byrne, you are an American Hero for EXPOSING this Scum-of-the-Earth that has corrupted the markets — via Naked Short Selling.

   What an OUTRAGE! Dendreon Corp. is a biotech company trying to cure CANCER — and they get victimized by Hedge Funds — via the Naked Short Selling.

   Attn: EVERYONE — Link this article & chart ALL OVER THE INTERNET. Let us all, together, EXPOSE THE FINANCIAL RAPE of Dendreon Corp.!!!

   I don’t see how the SEC can even sleep at night — knowing they have not stopped the FINANCIAL RAPE of Dendreon Corp. and other companies that are being victimized by the Hedge Funds — via Naked Short Selling.

   Thanks again Dr. Byrne! With your help, the world is going to know all the shills, etc. WHO corrupted the system and the SEC which has not stopped the Financial Rapists from doing Bear Raids — via Naked Short Selling.

   I want to see JUSTICE for Dendreon Corp. and all of us (each & every one of us) who have ALL been victimized — via Naked Short Sellers — who have wiped-out retirement savings of millions of Americans and investors worldwide.

   I think it is time to EXPOSE who the leaders of all these Hedge Funds are — and know their names, office addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses & where the leaders live. The PEOPLE need to be able to send them Holiday Greeting Cards.

   I want justice — and I wanted it yesterday.

   Hang_’em_High

3. al Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

   A unified effort by short interests against any company is in a word, RACKETEERING!

   And I do believe there are enforceable laws on the books against THAT activity.

4. al Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   If naked shorts cannot be dealt with by a corrupted (and captured) SEC, maybe what we need to see is a law like the RICO act used to go after this type of criminal.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering

5. Jeremiah 9:24 Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

   Read Helen Avery’s excellent Euromoney article on delivery failures in the U.S. Treasury market and you will see where the very large corrupt ’smart’ money expects the next market implosion to be. It seems to me that big illegal short expects a dollar collapse and high interest rates, in the not too distant future. I personally am acting accordingly. (I bet corporate bonds denominated in US$ are not a good investment just now, either, IF you want delivery of what you buy.)

   Here’s the link:

   http://www.euromoney.com/...s-breaking-point.html

   It is impressive how certain ‘investors’ seem to know in advance what companies/commodities/markets are about to collapse. I still wonder, just how did those option traders know Bear Stearns was history? Are they the same folks selling US Treasuries that they won’t deliver to the buyers?

6. mhelburn Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

   PC is limited to males. With a majority of males on Capitol and Capital Hill, you would think that fixing this would become a priority.

   The DNDN IV board keeps stats of how many people have died without the benefit of this drug and have been forced to use the conventional treatment which has more side effects. Rumor is that MM who has interest in the other drug treatments is behind the delay of making Provenge available.

   The last I read from one of Provenge’s advocates is that the drug destroys the cancer within the tumor, but leaves scar tissue behind so the tumor still looks like a tumor to regular scanning, but stops growing.

   It isn’t just PC patients being denied treatment. If this were allowed to be used, it might lead to treatment of other cancers with this method.

   This drug should have been fast tracked. The initial group approved of it, but when it got pushed up in the FDC, those higher up and who have conflicts of interest with other treatments demanded more data.

   Knowing the greed of MM, it would be no surprise that he has the decision makers on his payroll in some manner.

7. Paul Haider Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

   Patrick,
   I agree with many here, you are an American hero. Let me add a little information on this topic for you to consider.

   Dendreon was on the SEC’s Regulation SHO threshold security list for nearly 600 days and continues to this day to be heavily shorted. The short interest in Dendreon actually increased 50 percent pursuant to the positive recommendation by the FDA’s own advisory committee that decided overwhelmingly that Provenge met the necessary requirements to be granted immediate marketing approval.

   The fact that short interest actually rose despite the overwhelmingly positive advisory committee decision is a completely illogical response by investors unless somebody knew the outcome in advance. In fact, over half the entire float in Dendreon stock was shorted pursuant to the decision. It is clear to me that the science and normal process at the FDA was overturned by a group of people with inordinate influence and subverted the normal process. How else can anybody explain these facts? The FDA’s determination counter to the advisory committee’s recommendation to grant immediate marketing approval for Provenge was unprecedented.

   More alarming is the fact that one key panel participant (Dr. Howard Scher) has direct ties to, and receives compensation, from a $1 billion venture capital investment fund (Proquest Investments) and has a competing interest in seeing Provenge denied marketing approval.

   This fund was started by and funded by Michael Milken and operates as an extension of the Prostate Cancer Foundation which was also started by Michael Milken as a non profit.

   Furthermore, the FDA Commissioner himself, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, has a long and personal relation to Michael Milken and has contributed to the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s scientific mission since its inception in 1993.

   I am deeply concerned by the amount of control and influence that Michael Milken, possesses over the prostate cancer community, Dr. Scher’s and Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach’s long and close professional relationship to Michael Milken and their authority and position within the FDA.

   Voting on and participating in an FDA advisory meeting in order to determine which drugs receive FDA marketing approval in which you play a decisive role in and in which you have a financial interest in (or counter interest in), is contrary to unbiased public concern and counter to the fiduciary duty Dr. Scher accepted as a special government employee and FDA panel advisor. Dr. Scher’s participation in the Provenge advisory panel is akin to a defendant’s own sibling participating on a jury resulting in a hung jury decision. Knowing of Dr. Scher’s and Dr. von Eschenbach’s close professional relationship to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Michael Milken, how is the public to believe that the FDA made the correct decision? Surely you can see the travesty of his participation in this matter. Such conflicts of public and personal interest jeopardize the legitimacy of one proclaiming to act on behalf of the public’s best interests.

   We know that patients who received Provenge had a 4.5 month median survival advantage than that reported for the placebo arm. Nearly twice as effective as Taxotere’s 2.3 month survival benefit. Even more impressive, were the patients that received Provenge followed by Taxotere were shown to increase their median survival to 35 months.

   Yet, the survival advantages for Taxotere are enough to garner FDA marketing approval but not for Provenge? Taxotere showed a lower survival advantage and significant adverse side effects when compared to Provenge.

   These barriers to reason must not stand. We must bring truth and reason to power in the public arena. The FDA uses statistics the way a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than for illumination.

8. Dr. Jim DeCosta Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

   The development stage yet to be cash flow positive biomedical companies are the perfect targets for NSS attacks. They have high monthly burn rates and there is no way they can become cash flow positive for many years due to how the FDA process works. Abusive naked short sellers can easily flood their share structures with failures to deliver (FTDs) that procreate the “accounting measures” known as “securities entitlements” that UCC Article 8 unfortunately made readily sellable due to the assumed short term nature of any delivery delay at the DTCC. All securities fraudsters have to do is to refuse to deliver that which they sell and a self-fulfilling prophecy can easily be accessed. As the readily sellable “securities entitlements” stack up the share price of the company under attack has to implode since the sum of the “supply” of readily sellable “shares” plus the “supply” of readily sellable “securities entitlements” gets artificially manipulated upwards. “Supply” and “demand” forces still interact to determine share prices through a process known as “price discovery” but these two variables are easily manipulated. The share price can easily be manipulated into a self-propagating death spiral. Non-cash flow positive biomeds like Dendreon can thus be forced to raise money to pay their expensive monthly burn rates at often steep discounts (due to the implied risk of financing a company whose share price is in a death spiral) to ever-decreasing share price levels. If they ever do survive their attack and become successful then their future earnings per share will be small because of the gazillions of shares they will have outstanding by the time they become cash flow positive. More mature cash flow positive corporations can always buy back and cancel their shares when their share price becomes ridiculously low. The Dendreons of the world don’t have this luxury. The crooks know that it would make no sense for Dendreon to sell shares at steep discounts to market and use that cash to buy back shares at market levels. It’s tough for the Dendreons of the world to sell a piece of their company for cash UNTIL their cancer cure is well proven which takes time and money and therefore dilution. The combination of a high monthly burn rate and the predictable inability to become cash flow positive for extended periods of time is what these criminals crave. The choice of going after companies with prospective cancer cures gives us all a little bit of insight into the hearts and souls (or lack thereof) of these crooks. Their recent targeting of a company that retrofits Humvees to better sustain the effects of IEDs used in Iraq to maim and kill our soldiers is equally appalling. The collateral damage involving the taking down of our entire financial system in order for these crooks to cash in on attacking certain banks perceived to be defenseless at the time was also very inspiring. Kudos to Patrick for the charts clearly showing the astronomic increase in the levels of FTDs right as the share prices of these targeted corporations fell off the cliff.

9. Piperdown Says:
   after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

   thanks, patrick. And Provenge does “work” as its statistically significant (for survival) Phase III trial 9901 (and combined 9901+9902a data) show, and as the current 9902B-Impact Phase III trial is trending (as per recently released interim data), towards its final results in 2009.

   Dendreon and its investors were shafted by a corrupt FDA, and specifically 2 doctors (who were over-voted on an FDA panel) with finanical conflcts of interests in since-failed competitors of Dendreon.

   The short interest in DNDN massively spiked AFTER an FDA panel recommended Provenge for approval in late March 2007 (efficacy vote 14-3, saftery 17-0), and before the FDA announced a request for more data in early May 2007.

   The fix was in.

10. kyoto27 Says:
    after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

    Thank you Pat for trying to expose the Dendreon/Provenge story to more light because the Provenge story can stand up to the exposure, but it appears Provenge’s naysayers cannot. For example, the captured biotech media will report that the FDA was swayed by some prominent cancer researchers who wrote letters saying the data were lousy.

    But when taking a closer look at these “prominent cancer researchers” they all had one thing in common: No knowledge or experience with cancer immunotherapies like Provenge. And yet, they all still knew a bad thing when they saw it?

    A vocal naysayer, Dr Howard Scher, who was also one of the AC panel’s most conflicted members noted for the record: “Personally I have no experience with this agent (Provenge), so I’d just like to ask clinicians who have used it.” A clinician that did use it, Dr David Pension, gave Scher an insight into the world of highly targeted “smart-bomb” vaccines:

    “This is not like classic chemo; there is no loss of hair, no sickness associated with it and many of the site investigators who are experienced with the drug, feel that it’s a safe drug and that it works…that it extends life in a very desperate group of patients.”

    So on closer the so-called “prominent cancer researchers” appear more like a desperate band of scientists and theologians embracing the “geocentric theory of the universe” on the eve of the Copernican Revolution. The arrogance of the campaign to derail Provenge overlooked the notion that survival data from immune-based products is qualitatively different from, and needs to be judged by different criteria than, survival data from chemotherapy drugs.

    And sadly these so-called prominent cancer researchers knew very well what the Provenge story was/is really all about –a paradigm shift that has the potential to fundamentally change the way that cancer is treated.
    Provenge works, and it is for that reason that so many are so committed to its destruction.
    The Provenge story exposes a heart of darkness in America that few could believe could exist—let alone prevail.
    God Bless your energy, spirit and integrity Pat. And as a cancer survivor, you may no doubt be even more outraged at those who would profit by shorting the war on cancer for their own economic benefit.

11. Lenofus Says:
    after publication. --> December 4th, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    You know, Doc, if you’d come out of your shell, you’d be an all right guy.

    We were all a bunch of ragamuffins screaming into the night, and then you showed up. A lot of us had lost everything, including our self respect. People thought we were crazy, that were just malcontents. I can still see the faces of some of the people, big people in Insurance and Securities who, today, are probably where I was then.

    One guy. Of all the 300,000,000 people in this country, you were the only one. The rest, the rich, the educated……..they let our country die so they could have for themselves. And you gave it all up. You gave up your comfort, your way of life. You gave up your sleep, your safety. You lost friends you thought you cherished, but I think found were not your friends. But look what you have obtained. You have the respect of thousands of us now, and millions who are yet to know your name. And if you ever need a kidney, you know where to find me.

    Thanks, Pal. For everything.