Amgen Inc. on Wednesday appealed the decision of a federal judge to allow the sale of a copycat version of the company’s blockbuster cancer drug Neupogen. The Thousand Oaks pharmaceutical company requested an injunction to stop the sale of Zarxio, a product from Swiss drug maker Novartis AG that has the same active ingredient as Neupogen, which halts infections in chemotherapy patients. Zarxio is the first “biosimilar” approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States. Amgen went to court seeking to overturn the agency’s decision, but last week a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco denied the request, opening the way for Zarxio to compete against Neupogen on the market. Biosimilars are medicines that copy proprietary biotech drugs when patent protection expires. Because small differences in the environment or manufacturing processes may alter the final product, the drugs are called similar – but not identical – to the original drug. Neupogen has annual sales of $1.2 billion. Its patent expired last year. Amgen shares closed down $5.35, or 3.2 percent, to $160.66 on the Nasdaq. Insiders at Marcus & Millichap Inc. have sold an additional 600,000 shares of stock in a transaction that totaled more than $19 million, according to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Last week, the same group at the Calabasas commercial real estate brokerage unloaded 3.2 million shares in a transaction that totaled more than $102 million. Both holdings were sold by Phoenix Investments Holdings, a Delaware limited liability company formed to hold 25 million shares received by co-founder and Chairman George M. Marcus and other company shareholders when the company went public in October 2013. None of the proceeds went to the company, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The latest shares were sold on the open market Tuesday at an average price of $31.99. Shares fell 4 cents on Wednesday to close at $35.40 on the New York Stock Exchange. PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust has declared a cash dividend for the first quarter. The Moorpark real estate investment trust will pay 61 cents a share on April 29 to common shareholders of record on April 15. The trust invests in residential mortgage and mortgage-related assets. Shares closed up 1 cent to $21.34 on the New York Stock Exchange.
