(Bloomberg News) SAC Capital Advisors LP, the $14 billion hedge fund run by billionaire Steven A. Cohen, may have lost about $196 million from its stake in Dendreon Corp., the drug-maker that plunged the most ever after it withdrew its 2011 revenue estimate.
SAC Capital, owned 8.2 million shares of Seattle-based Dendreon as of the end of March, making it the company's biggest shareholder, according to a regulatory filing. Dendreon fell 66 percent, or $23.86, to $11.98 at 11:48 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading, the biggest decline since its initial public offering in June 2000.
Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Gold said in a statement yesterday that the company was educating doctors about the $93,000 treatment and a decision last month by the U.S. Medicare and Medicaid program to pay for the drug. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets, Robert W. Baird & Co. and Brean Murray Carret & Co. downgraded the stock.
Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Stamford, Connecticut- based SAC Capital, declined to comment.