Dendreon Hires HR Boss

Dendreon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DNDN]]), the Seattle-based developer of immune-stimulating therapies for cancer, said today it has hired Richard Ranieri as its new senior vice president for human resources starting on April 19. Ranieri was formerly the executive vice president of human resources at Sepracor, which was acquired last September by Dainippon Sumitomo for $2.6 billion. Ranieri takes the Dendreon job as the company is eagerly awaiting word by May 1 from the FDA on whether it can start selling its first product in the U.S., sipuleucel-T (Provenge). Dendreon raised more than $630 million from investors last year to support the launch, and is on a hiring binge, growing from 200 employees a year ago to 600 this year.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.