Amgen Q4 - Weightloss drug on the works

Amgen's results from last week weren't as exciting as Eli Lilly's, but were still decent, with revenue and profit both higher than analyst expectations. Revenue was up 7% for the full-year, driven by record sales for 18 of their brands. We like Amgen because it isn't a one-trick pony.

To broaden their drug portfolio further, particularly in the rare-disease category, Amgen completed a $28 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics last October. This deal makes it very difficult to compare like-for-like financial metrics from a year earlier, and also added $25 billion in debt to the balance sheet.

Amgen has their own weight-loss drug in the works, called MariTide (AMG 133 or Maridebart cafraglutide), which had very positive preliminary phase 1 results. The phase 2 study is now underway, and we should have those results out at the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, MariTide will be on sale in 2027. Even though that's three years away, we are already seeing some excitement in Amgen's share price, because of the sheer scale of the rapidly growing obesity drug market.

Over the next year, we expect the share price to be driven by data about the AMG 133 trial and how well management can settle operations after their big Horizon purchase. While we wait to see how things go, we can enjoy a 3% dividend yield.