Amgen Q3 - Climbing Product Volumes

Vestact-recommended stock Amgen released its third-quarter earnings earlier in the week, showing that demand for their products is slowly coming back.

Total revenues increased by 4% to $6.7 billion year-on-year, driven by higher demand, in spite of lower average selling prices. They shipped more product, including osteoporosis drugs Prolia (up 15%) and Evenity (up 153%); cholesterol drug Repatha (up 33%) and cancer treatment Mvasi (up 19%).

Group earnings were down 3% due to a once-off $400 million licensing-related expense arising from their collaboration with Japanese pharma company Kyowa Kirin. Amgen is a very strong cash generator, back to $2.2 billion in free flows. For comparative purposes, pre-Covid cash flow generation was at about $3.2 billion.

The big news in the quarter was that Amgen got full FDA approval for an incredible new lung cancer drug. The company scientists found a way to genetically reprogram T-cells to go after specific KRAS mutations in cancerous lung cells.

They use a technique where they zap your T-cells with electricity to edit a specific gene, and then they put those T-cells back into your body, which takes about an hour. This method is used to target cancer cells with very specific protein receptors, then blow them up.

Let's see if this new therapy can put some excitement back into the Amgen share price, which has drifted for the last two years.