Thousand Oaks pharmaceuticals firm Amgen announced a double dose of bad news Wednesday in the form of a trial setback and a recall.
The first blow was the company’s disclosure that a trial for the myeloma treatment Kypolis did not show the drug led to superior survival rates when compared with an alternative treatment. The drug is marketed by Amgen subsidiary Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. and has been approved for treatment in certain cases.
In the second hit, Amgen announced a voluntary recall of nine lots of prefilled syringes of Aranesp after a quality check found signs of foreign materials in the products. Aranesp is used for the treatment of anemia associated with kidney failure and the recalled products were not known to be blamed for any health problems at the time of Amgen’s disclosure.
Shares of Amgen fell $2.74, or 2 percent, to $124.60 in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq.