Public Biotechnology Company Buys Cancer Vaccine Domain Names

In the most recent DNJournal weekly domain sales report, Ron Jackson reported the sale of two cancer vaccine domain names: CancerVaccine.org sold for $18,000 and CancerVaccine.net sold for $10,000. According to the updated Whois records for both domain names, the company that acquired them is a publicly traded pharmaceutical company called Northwest Biotherapeutics (Stock symbol: NWBO).

Additional research led me to find that the company also acquired CancerVaccine.com as well. Up until August 1, the domain name was owned under privacy protection at Moniker, but the Whois lookup is now showing that it is owned by  Northwest Biotherapeutics at Go Daddy. Prior to its privacy protection in late 2012, it was owned by a domain investor in New Jersey.  It is possible the company had owned it at that point, and the privacy was removed after the transfer.

At the moment, it does not appear that the domain names are being utilized by the company.

I did a bit of cursory research on  Northwest Biotherapeutics, and on the company’s website, it mentions this: “The Company’s platform technology, DCVax ^®, uses a patient’s own dendritic cells, the starter engine of the immune system. The dendritic cells are extracted from the body, loaded with tumor biomarkers or ”antigens”, thereby creating a personalized therapeutic vaccine.”

It’s a wise move for NWBO to own these particular domain names because it’s more likely that people will remember the words “cancer vaccine” rather than the company or product name. I am not familiar with pharmaceutical marketing, but I assume that they could use these generic domain names in marketing materials, making it easier for patients and medical professionals to remember how to navigate to the company website, assuming they plan to use these domain names in market.

Congratulations to  Northwest Biotherapeutics for getting these important domain names.