Dendreon Corporation Appoints Andrew R. Scherer Vice President of Manufacturing.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 29, 2004

Dendreon Corporation (Nasdaq:DNDN) today announced that Andrew R. Scherer has joined the Company as vice president of manufacturing. Scherer joins Dendreon after a distinguished 15-year career at Genentech, Inc. (Nasdaq:DNA), where he most recently served as vice president of engineering/facilities and chairman of the board of Genentech Espana. At Dendreon, Scherer will be responsible for ongoing clinical manufacturing and the scale up and establishment of commercial manufacturing for Provenge(R) and the Company's other products.

Scherer brings more than 25 years of industry experience in manufacturing, including 5 years at Merck, Inc. prior to joining Genentech. While at Genentech, Scherer was responsible for a broad range of areas key to building and maintaining infrastructure, including protein scale up, supply chain establishment and manufacturing operations. His responsibilities included the establishment and management of cell culture manufacturing capabilities and cGMP compliance for all of Genentech's products, including Herceptin(R) and Rituxan(R). Scherer also provided guidance as a member of Genentech's product portfolio planning team. Annual sales in 2003 for Genentech products were approximately $2.6 billion, including $1.9 billion in oncology sales.

"Andy is an experienced leader in the commercialization of successful biologics," said Grant E. Pickering, senior vice president of operations at Dendreon. "He is a key addition to our management team as we continue to prepare for the commercialization of Provenge."

Prior to joining Genentech in 1988, Scherer served as plant manager for Merck's South San Francisco chemical and pharmaceutical production facility. He also held manufacturing and engineering positions for chemical companies, including Dow Chemical. Scherer received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University.

Dendreon Corporation is a biotechnology company developing targeted therapies for cancer. The company's lead investigational product candidate, Provenge(R), is a cancer immunotherapy undergoing a pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial for the treatment of androgen independent prostate cancer. In addition to its immunotherapies in clinical and preclinical development for a variety of cancers, Dendreon's product pipeline also includes monoclonal antibody, small molecule and pro-drug product candidates. Dendreon has research and development alliances with Genentech, Inc., Abgenix, Inc. and Dyax Corp. For more information about the company and its programs, visit www.dendreon.com.

Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, particularly those risks and uncertainties inherent in the process of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics. Factors that may cause such a difference include reliance on key employees, especially senior management, risks related to Dendreon's limited operating history, risks associated with completing Dendreon's clinical trials, the risk that the results of a clinical trial, including Phase 3 trials of Provenge, will not support applying for or approval of a biologics license by the FDA, the risks associated with development of manufacturing capabilities and other infrastructure to support commercialization, including the risks that we may be unable to successfully scale up our manufacturing and production capabilities or may lack adequate capital to do so, the risk that clinical trials may be suspended or terminated because of unacceptable health risks or for other reasons, and the risks that our competitors may develop products that are safer, more effective or reach the market sooner than our product candidates, the uncertainty of Dendreon's future access to capital, the risk that Dendreon may not secure or maintain relationships with collaborators, and dependence on intellectual property. Further information on the factors and risks that could affect Dendreon's business, financial condition and results of operations, are contained in Dendreon's public disclosure filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which are available at www.sec.gov.