Dendreon

I joined Dendreon as a consultant through a staffing partner, working as part of a small tiger/turnaround team focused on helping the company deliver its cancer immunotherapy treatment, Provenge.

The Work

Our small team focused on the technical systems that supported bringing Provenge to patients:

Blood carrier transportation routing and logistics - Provenge is manufactured using the patient’s own cells, requiring precise coordination
Pharmaceutical manufacturing process optimization - Every system had to maintain full FDA regulatory compliance
Whatever needed doing - I wrote code, audited systems, kept things online, validated quality through testing, and mentored teammates on technologies where I had deeper experience. Small teams don’t have the luxury of narrow job descriptions

The Stock Correlation

If you look at Dendreon’s publicly traded stock price during my tenure versus after I left, you’ll see a pattern: the stock improved while our team was there working on stabilization, then declined after we moved on - eventually leading to bankruptcy in 2014.

Correlation isn’t causation. But small teams working on the right problems during critical moments can have outsized impact.

What Biotech Teaches You

FDA compliance is non-negotiable. When you’re dealing with cancer treatments, every process, every change, every system has to be documented and auditable. There’s no “move fast and break things” in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Great teams aren’t always homogeneous. We had talented people who came from different backgrounds with different skill sets. Part of delivering results was getting everyone aligned on the tools and approaches we needed. Some of those people are still friends I talk to today.

Sometimes you’re there for the fight, not the victory. Dendreon eventually filed for bankruptcy. That doesn’t mean the work was wasted - we helped keep a cancer treatment available to patients during a critical period. Somewhere, a kid got more time with their grandpa because the logistics worked and the treatment arrived when it needed to. That matters more than stock prices.