Research archive for AMGN

Heart disease is by far the world's biggest killer. According to the WHO, 16% of deaths since the year 2000 are the result of heart disease. In 2019, it accounted for 9 million out of the 55 million recorded fatalities. The next biggest killer is strokes which accounted for just over 6 million deaths in that year.

Our worst-performing portfolio holding this year is pharmaceutical company Amgen. It's in the green since January, but only by 2.3%.

On Tuesday night Amgen released results that looked decent. Revenues were in line with expectations and profits comfortably beat the Wall Street forecast. Unfortunately, forward guidance looked a little soft so the share took a hit during Wednesday's session, down over 6%.

As expected, the US FDA just approved Amgen's new KRAS drug for cancer. The brand name will be Lumakras. I can really say "as expected" because back in June 2019 I wrote this in the Vestact newsletter:

Amgen released some underwhelming numbers last week after missing expectations on revenue. The share price has also been disappointing of late, it is flat over the last year.

Biotech juggernaut Amgen released its numbers for the December 2020 quarter yesterday. The numbers were impressive considering they had to lower their drug prices.

It's earning season, and the quarterly numbers are rolling in. Our big-cap biotech holding Amgen was out with results just after 22h00 SAST last night. They were excellent, with reported profits of $4.37 per share, well ahead of expectations at $3.80 per share.

I said I would feature some lesser known CEO's of stocks we own. An important part of any investment decision is knowing that the company is in good leadership hands. One of the nice things about investing in a mature and sophisticated market like the US is that you can assume (not always of course) that the top dogs at big companies have to be super smart and hard working to get there.

On Tuesday night after the US market closed Amgen reported their latest results. Revenue for the quarter was $6.2 billion, in-line with expectations, and profits of $4.25 per share were ahead of the expectations of $3.84.

If you own a bunch of high-quality stocks in a portfolio, good things are always happening to them, and you only find out later. Here's a case in point, Amgen just had a major patent protection victory. The stock popped up to a new all-time high of $260 per share yesterday.

Last week Amgen released solid results. Sales increased 12% year on year to $6.1bn. Some of the their up and coming blockbuster drugs had a good quarter. Repatha which treats cholesterol increased sales by 62%. That is one of their potential rockstars.

What about buying pharmaceutical stocks at a time like this? In the middle of a global pandemic of such major proportions, big money is being thrown at Covid-19 diagnostics, treatment, vaccines and immunity enhancers.

On Thursday night Amgen released results that beat both revenue and profit forecasts. What didn't impress the market was their lower than expected guidance around future profits. The stock close down 4.5% on Friday, around half of that drop, can be attributed to the general market sell-off though.

Our biotech pharma investment Amgen has made some interesting moves in the last week. As long-time holders of this stock know, it owns a wide portfolio of patented drugs for treating inflammation and arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, migraines, bone injuries and skin disorders.

The world's largest biotech company, Amgen released its third-quarter earnings that beat the streets expectations. The company saw strong volume growth for the seventh consecutive quarter which can be attributable to new drug launches like migraines drug Aimovig and the launch of biosimilars including Kanjinti for breast cancer.