Replies to post #4365 on Dendreon Corp fka DNDNQ

[DewDiligence]

Your example has the two necessary elements: variation and selective attrition. Regards, Dew

p.s. It seems that everyone here understands the concept except ocyan, who carries on about other kinds of clinical-trial biases that have nothing to do with this bias.

[chebese]

<<It's really hard to argue against Dew's point that this bias exists. How significant in the case of Prov. is a much more difficult question.>>

Totally agree that this is the real issue. I believe the bias of the type poster DewDiligence points out exists and I believe the bias of the type poster iwfal points to also exists. I think most people investing in DNDN believe they exist to varying degrees.

The relevant issue is what we think the magnitude of this bias is. The bias could be 1% or it could be 91% depending on (in poster iwfal's example) among other parameters, the fraction of the underlying population of drugs that are truly effective (v. bogus ones), the rate of false IDs in these clinical trials, ....
Since we don't have a good handle on these parameters, they could take on any wide range of values. One could very easily `overestimate' the magnitude the bias depending on what one assumes a parameter value to be.

So even if a bias exists, it is not at all obvious to me that these biases are being `underestimated'. In fact, at the current stock price, I am wondering whether many people are overestimating the magnitude of these biases.