Research archive for AMGN

There was good news yesterday from our recommended portfolio holding, biotech pharma company Amgen. They announced that they will buy the psoriasis drug Otezla from Celgene for $13.4 billion in cash.

What's going on at Amgen? This biotech company is also widely held in our client base, and its share price has underperformed a bit lately. The stock price reached $210 late last year, but has since drifted lower to around $180 per share.

Our most important role at Vestact is to closely monitor the stocks that our clients own. Pharmaceutical giant Amgen is held by most of our New York customers. Its share price has been drifting around lately, and closed at $183.17 last night. In fact, there is lots of good stuff going on at Amgen. It's just that some of their current big-selling drugs are reporting declining sales, and their newer ones are taking time to gain traction. Here are two stories that underline why this stock is a good one to own.

Last week Vestact's direct exposure to the pharmaceutical industry, Amgen, reported their Q1 numbers. Currently, the company is in a bit of no-mans land, where some of their big-name patents have recently expired, and the company is waiting for their new big-name drugs to ramp up in scale.

Vestact recommended pharma company Amgen has an extremely promising drug called Erenumab (trade name Aimovig) which is a medication which targets the calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor (CGRPR) for the prevention of migraines. It was approved by the US FDA in 2018.

Last week our favoured biotech stock, Amgen, released results for the fourth quarter and full year 2018. As we have alluded to before, Amgen is going through a phase where a few of their blockbuster drugs are slowing down because of off-patent competition. At the same time they are pushing new exciting drugs into the market. That is not always as easy as it sounds, even if you assume the drug works really well. You still need to convince the doctors, insurers and hospitals to endorse the product.

Amgen is another core holding in Vestact US portfolios, and had results out after the bell last night. As you know, it is one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, with a focus on cardiovascular disease, oncology, bone health, neuroscience, nephrology and inflammation.

When there is a lot going on in the general news, it's useful to refocus on company specific updates. After all, we invest in actual enterprises which do useful things in the real world, and get paid.

Amgen is a core holding in Vestact US portfolios. It is one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, and it closed at a lifetime high of $207.21 last night, giving it a market capitalisation of $134 billion.

On Thursday the world's largest biotech firm Amgen reported a better-than-expected set of numbers for their second quarter. Amgen raised their full-year forecast, as the company sees more growth stemming from Prolia, an osteoporosis drug, and Repatha, a drug that fights bad cholesterol.

We are deep into quarterly US earnings season now, and what an exciting time it is! It's great to get detailed updates from all of our core Vestact portfolio holdings, and to see the market reactions.

Amgen's fourth-quarter results came out late last week. The stock price has done pretty well in the last three months, almost getting to $200 per share. It's at $187 per share now, giving the company a market capitalisation of $135.8 billion.

On Wednesday we had 3rd quarter results from Amgen. Remember these guys discover, develop and manufacture various human therapeutics. When looking at this company, all focus needs to be on their portfolio of therapies; what they cure, competition, FDA approval, medical aid adoption, doctor adoption, side effects, how the therapy is administered, regulation and many more factors. Fortunately, Amgen has a market cap of $130bn (30% bigger than Naspers) and boasts a portfolio of more than 13 mainstream products with annual sales ranging from $150m to $6bn.

Amgen Reported their Q2 2017 results aftermarket yesterday, with both a top-line and a bottom line beat. Earnings per share clocked 3.27 US Dollars (up 15 percent) on revenues of 5.81 billion Dollars (up 2 percent). Whilst there was momentum on their new products, there was a definite slowdown on their older products which obviously face increasing competition over time. It is the nature of the beast. Which is why, when owning a business in this very important space, healthcare, you need to find a business like Amgen, which has multiple lines in the water, so to speak. To illustrate this point, you need to look no further than to the breakdown per therapy:

The Amgen share price has been under pressure since Friday the 13th of March this year. Well, let me rephrase that. The Amgen share price took a knock on that day as a result of a fairly innocuous release: Repatha (Evolocumab) Demonstrates Reduced Need For Apheresis In Patients With High LDL Cholesterol In Phase 3 Study. Let us just say that the outcome was not what people expected.