Amgen Gets a Boost

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Shares in Amgen Inc. shot up Thursday after the biotech giant gave the market its first shot of good news in more than a week.


The Thousand Oaks-based biotech company reported that its top-selling anemia drug Aranesp did not worsen survival chances in a trial of lung-cancer patients. The news comes following the departure of its CFO the previous week, suggestions that the company offered financial incentives for using its drugs to for-profit dialysis centers, and the launch of an informal Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into whether the company might have withheld information on drug studies from investors.


Aranesp and its sister anemia drug, Epogen, are approved to treat anemia in people with kidney disease or undergoing chemotherapy. The two drugs accounted for nearly half of Amgen’s $14 billion in annual sales during 2006.


In the latest study, 600 patients suffering from small-cell lung cancer who were receiving platinum-containing chemotherapy took Aranesp and demonstrated no statistically significant difference in risk of death from those on placebo.


Amgen didn’t release precise figures for death rates and survival durations but did say the study showed a statistically significant lower risk of blood transfusions in Aranesp users which is the desired result from taking Aranesp.


After shooting up 6 percent earlier in the day, Amgen closed up $2.31, or 4 percent, to $62.32 Thursday on the Nasdaq. The company is scheduled to report first quarter earnings on Monday.

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