Two years after the US put a man on the Moon, Richard Nixon announced a heady new goal: to cure cancer by 1976, America’s bicentennial.

That festival came and went, as did the Millennium, the next target date that had been set for eradicating the scourge.

Now the Big O, who can understate the word “understate,” has vowed to find a cure for cancer “in our time,” and people are starting to wonder if even that is possible.

In fact there’s been only a 5% drop in age-adjusted cancer death rates since 1950.

Over the same period, death rates from cardiac disease and pneumonia/flu dropped 64% and 58%, respectively.

Funding has not been the problem. The National Cancer Institute has burned through $105 billion since Nixon declared war.

That doesn’t count spending by other government agencies, universities, Big Pharma and philanthropies.

Is cancer that much of a bear, or are we making fundamental mistakes in prosecuting the war?

Probably both. Cancer is a bear, or more accurately a thousand different ursine species. Cancer of the breast has, at our current levels of understanding, remarkably little to do with, say, cancer of the kidney.

A common weak link shared by all cancers may indeed not exist and if not, we have a long way to go, indeed.

But it’s also true that our research agenda has been driven by fads: cancer viruses, vaccines, genomics and promoters, and in some cases advocacy groups have commandeered research agendas in pursuit of these fads to the detriment of all.

In addition, investment in basic research, the kind that can fundamentally change treatment approaches, tends to lose out to less risky applied research.

“That is the biggest threat,” Robert Young told the New York Times.

The Fox Chase Cancer Center oncologist explained that “every organization says, ‘Oh, we want to fund high-risk research.’ And I think they mean it. But they don’t do it.”

The Walt Disney Company wants a bigger piece of the action in the pre-teen boy market, so it hired an anthropologist to sort through the dresser drawers of a 12 year-old.

Venturing into territory never before seen by human eyes, much less smelled by human noses other than his mother’s who–let’s face it–had no choice, Kelly Peña eventually found a Black Sabbath T-shirt scrunched into a corner on the top shelf.

When confronted with the artifact, the boy confided that “wearing it makes me feel like I’m going to an R-rated movie.” 

Disney hopes these and other penetrating psychological insights into a most assuredly confused demographic can help it recreate a time when Davy Crockett drove millions of boy-dollars its way, while hopefully counteracting its reputation as a provider of girl-friendly fare like (ew!) Hannah Montana.

Early results of Peña’s work are apparent on Disney XD, a new cable channel and Web site featuring urban skateboard parks populated by unassuming, nonthreatening boys, and on its TV hit “Aaron Stone,” where one character is quite average as a basketball player.

Peña had suggested to producers that today’s boys relate with characters that are trying to grow and improve themselves. “Winning isn’t nearly as important to boys as Hollywood thinks,” she told the New York Times.

Boys in the 6 to 14 age range drive $50 billion in global sales per year, according to market researchers, but it’s a tough market to crack, a fact to which News Corporation can attest after its Fox Kids Network failed famously in the late 1990s. 

Despite Pena’s intrepid work to date, results have been modest. Disney XD has bumped its prime-time audience by 27% among kids between 6-14 years of age, but most of that has come from girls. Viewership among the boys is up 10%.

Just don’t tell that to the boys!

What a long, strange trip it’s been for Dendreon.

Three years ago, positive results from a trial of Provenge, its immune therapy drug for prostate cancer, prompted an FDA advisory panel to recommend that it be approved.

Instead, the FDA ordered another study.

Last fall, the company announced interim results of the second study which showed the treatment group had 22% fewer deaths, but the results were met with skepticism and the company was told to finish out the trial.

Well, final results are in and Dendreon shareholders are celebrating all the way to the bank.

Provenge extended survival in late-stage prostate cancer patients with no major side effects.

The company plans to seek FDA approval for the juice later this year.

Shares of the heavily shorted stock closed at $22.94, up 94% on the day of the announcement.

Just before that, there were 2 “sell” ratings and 5 “hold” ratings among the 7 analysts who follow the biotechnology company. One analyst had set a $1 price target.

Now the chatter is which company in Big Pharmaville will acquire Dendreon and for how much.

After all, the list of pharmaceutical companies facing declining sales, generic competition and withering pipelines is longer than the line outside the toilet in coach on a flight from Boston to San Fran.

“Provenge could be on the market by mid next year, (it) could be instantly accretive to earnings,” said Joe Pantginis, of Merriman Curhan Ford & Co.

And Dendreon maintains full worldwide distribution rights for Provenge, making it even more appealing as an acquisition target.

“There are very few unencumbered assets (like Dendreon) out there,” said a salivating Sven Borho.

He’s a portfolio manager for OrbiMed Advisors which holds a cool 2 million shares of Dendreon.