Healthcare Business Rewind: Pharmacyclics Rakes In MILESTONES, Dendreon In TROUBLE

Pharmacyclics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCYC) Phase III trial of its ibrutinib drug for treating leukiemia has enrolled a crucial fifth patient, thus triggering a milestone payment of $50 million from Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) Janssen Biotech division. For each new fifth patient, additional $50 million payments could be triggered, for up to a total of $250 million.

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Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ:DNDN) shares fell again on Wednesday following the company’s second quarter earnings miss and restructuring this week. SA author Amy Baldwin darkly predicts that Dendreon “is approaching the end of the road”, but even though Galena Biopharma, Inc. (GALE) also fell in connection to the former’s result, that firm is developing a vaccine to prevent the recurrence of breast cancer, and is expected to ‘thrive’.

Carl Icahn gets some respect in his latest attempt to change Forest Laboratories’ (NYSE:FRX) board: the proxy advisory firm ISS reveals that it does support two out of four of Icahn’s nominees, and also expresses some lingering doubts regarding the firm’s corporate governance. For its part, Forest remains by its board slate and says that ISS “undervalues future sales potential” at the company.

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