Dendreon: Biotech Stock Mailbag

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- This was a great week for the small but vocal group of loonies who believe in the existence of a vast conspiracy to keep Dendreon's(DNDN) prostate cancer vaccine Provenge from ever reaching the market.

The rants of the "P Baggers" -- as I like to call them -- served as the inspiration for this week's Biotech Stock Mailbag.

P Baggers believe that Michael Milken, the FDA, Wall Street hedge funds, Russian mobsters, naked shorters, the Cancer Letter's Paul Goldberg, esteemed prostate cancer doctors/researchers like Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Dr. Howard Scher and Michigan University's Maha Hussain and yours truly, under the direction of my "puppet master" Jim Cramer, naturally, have been working overtime for years to ensure that prostate cancer patients die and never receive Provenge.

Unfortunately, with Provenge's likely approval nearing, the opportunities for outrage and conspiracy theorizing around the P Baggers' water cooler has turned a bit dull.

That all changed Tuesday, however, when Elliot Favus of Favus Institutional Research issued a report claiming FDA was thinking about holding an advisory panel meeting to review Provenge.

Favus, my coverage of his report, and the yo-yo action in Dendreon's stock price Tuesday converged to bring great joy to the P Baggers because it gave them another opportunity to regurgitate and revamp their nutty, illogical set of grievances.

P Bagger Alan writes, "Your [sic] an [Bleep] for running that [Bleep] story this morning about Dendreon. Check your story before you go to print jerk. Hopefully, you and this other [Bleep] Favus will be investigated. I don't know how you sleep at night with the crap you write and what your [Bleep] costs the retail investor."

• Fact: The Favus report began hitting the inboxes of institutional investors Tuesday morning before 7 a.m. EST.
• Fact: Early but small trades in Dendreon were hitting Tuesday's pre-market tape at 7:15 a.m. showing the stock down almost $1.50, or 4%. At 7:45 a.m., Dendreon was trading at $29.75, down more than 8% from Monday's close. By 8:30, the stock was at $29.23, down 10%.
• Fact: My first indication that something was awry came via Twitter at 7:51 a.m. when someone I follow tweeted that the stock was down big for an unknown reason. At about the same time, I checked my inbox and saw an email from Favus with his report attached. Favus' email was sent to me at 7:54 a.m.