Shares of Amgen Inc. have been on a steady uptick all year, and are trading at near-record levels as news of positive clinical trials, investment deals and financial performance stream out of the company. The Thousand Oaks biotech has seen its stock post a 36 percent gain this year, and is trading at the highest levels since 1984. Shares closed Nov. 7 at $85.34. (See page 52.) The strong performance follows a third quarter earnings report last month n which the company beat analysts’ estimate with income of $1.1 billion, or $1.67 a share. The company also announced it had bought back 10 million shares at a cost of $800 million during the quarter. Additionally, Amgen said it will pay a 36-cent a share dividend. Once a growth stock, it just started paying dividends last year. “They’re at a stage now where they are expected to pay these dividends and start buybacks,” said Brent Reincke, a partner at law firm Musick, Peeler & Garrett LLP in Westlake Village and a co-founder of the BioTech Alliance, a trade group that encourages development of the pharma industry along the 101 corridor. Amgen also has a good crop of drugs in the development pipeline. Its most promising drug is AMG 145 which reduces cholesterol in patients who have experienced negative side effects from statin drugs such as Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor. “It’s still premature to tell you when it might be on the market, but we’re evaluating our Phase II results and we should be starting our Phase III trials early next year,” said Amgen spokeswoman Ashleigh Koss. A cholesterol drug would be a huge boost for the company given that its blockbuster anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen will face competition from generic versions in 2015. The two drugs together are expected to generate $4 billion in revenue for Amgen this year. However, rival drug makers, including Pfizer, are also competing to be the first to market with similar cholesterol medications. Amgen announced a surprise decision earlier this month when it partnered with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to create Westlake Village-based Atara Biotherapeutics, which will have licenses to six Amgen products for development. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Amgen will have a minority equity interest in the new company. Reincke said this puts Amgen in a smart position for the future. “A fair number of other large biopharma firms have done similar deals,” he said. “It pushes off some of that research and risk onto the new company, but Amgen can still benefit if it’s a success.” Koss at Amgen declined to discuss the Atara deal.
