Dendreon tripling workforce ahead of expected vax launch

Over the years Seattle-based Dendreon made a global name for itself as it developed one of the world's first therapeutic vaccines. It's also advanced the careers of scores of biotech executives who have gone on to a wide variety of other drug developers.

"Anybody who can sustain through what Dendreon has sustained--it's a good sign of who they are," Martin Simonetti, the former chief financial officer at Dendreon and now CEO of Seattle-based VLST, tells Xconomy's Luke Timmerman. "You really had a lot of entrepreneurial risk-takers there. There were a lot of good people that made good things happen."

Timmerman carefully tracked down the whereabouts of a long lineup of Dendreon alumni. And Dendreon is promising to help jazz the Seattle biotech scene with plenty of new development veterans. The company tells Xconomy that its workforce, 200 a year ago, is growing to 600 this year as it prepares for a highly-anticipated regulatory decision on Provenge.

- check out the Xconomy story to see where Dendreon veterans have landed

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