Amgen Company

Biotech giant Amgen Inc. saw its largest single-day stock-price jump in four years after announcing that its experimental bone-strengthening medicine worked better than a potential rival in a study comparing the two drugs in breast cancer patients. On Wednesday, the Thousand Oaks company's shares rose $7.27, a day-over-day increase of 13.9%, to close at $59.50 on the Nasdaq exchange.

Until last spring, Marc Engelman was a successful salesman for biotech giant Amgen Inc. His specialty: selling Enbrel, a powerful psoriasis treatment that costs nearly $20,000 a year. The highly profitable medication is approved only for patients with serious forms of the skin disease and comes with side effects including an increased risk of severe infection and congestive heart failure.

New Jersey's state attorney general on Thursday said she had subpoenaed records from Amgen Inc. after accusations by two former employees that the biotech giant engaged in possibly improper marketing practices to boost sales of a top-selling psoriasis drug. Early this week, Amgen was ordered to deliver "a comprehensive array" of documents and information concerning the marketing of Enbrel by Feb. 4, Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Beleaguered biotech giant Amgen Inc. said Thursday that it eked out a profit of less than 1% during the fourth quarter as sales of the company's top-selling anemia treatments continued to drop. The Thousand Oaks-based firm's profit benefited from substantial cost cutting in recent months although questions remain about the company's financial outlook for next year and beyond. Amgen reported $3.7 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, down from $3.8 billion a year earlier.

Amgen Inc. said Monday that it had agreed to sell the rights to 13 of its experimental drugs to Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. in a bid to defray costs and generate cash as sales of its biggest-selling anemia drug slow amid safety concerns. Under the agreement, Takeda, Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, will pay Amgen $200 million up front and as much as $702 million more if key development milestones are met.

Aranesp, biotech giant Amgen Inc.'s once-highflying anemia drug, took another hit Wednesday when the Food and Drug Administration ordered new restrictions on the way physicians prescribe it to cancer patients. Amgen's most successful biotech franchise, Aranesp has been under review by U.S. health officials since it was tied to a greater risk of heart attack, stroke and death at high doses in cancer patients nearly two years ago. Anemia is a common side effect from chemotherapy.

Amgen Inc., the world's largest biotechnology company, said Friday that it received a second subpoena from the U.S. attorney's office in Washington state in connection with the company's anemia drugs. Amgen received the "supplemental" subpoena July 18 for documents regarding "the sales and marketing of our products, and our collection and dissemination of information" on the drugs' efficacy and safety, the Thousand Oaks company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Federal health regulators said Friday that they were reviewing an experimental use of blockbuster anemia drugs made by Amgen Inc. and Johnson & Johnson that have been associated with higher death rates in a study involving stroke patients. This month J&J reported results from a German trial in which more stroke patients treated with its drug Eprex died than those taking a placebo.

A former Amgen Inc. patent lawyer won a victory Tuesday in his effort to get restitution for his firing last year for what he called whistle-blower activities targeting the pharmaceutical giant. A Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled that Darrell G. Dotson of Newbury Park can pursue his case in court -- often a more lucrative path -- rather than through the company's arbitration process.

Amgen Inc. and Cytokinetics Inc. said Wednesday that they would collaborate to develop drugs to treat heart failure in a deal that could yield smaller Cytokinetics more than $600 million if the products eventually succeed in clinical trials. Shares of Cytokinetics rose 11.4% on news of its deal with Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, the world's largest biotechnology company that is best known for its drugs that treat anemia and boost immune systems of chemotherapy patients.