Amgen Inc. shared its fourth quarter and full-year financial results prior to an announcement that it plans to buy back up to $6 billion of its own shares during the first quarter this year.
For the fourth quarter, the Thousand Oaks biotech giant reported on Feb. 8 a net income of $1.9 billion ($3.36 a share), compared to $1.6 billion ($2.76 a share) for the previous year. Revenue increased 3 percent to $6.8 billion.
Product sales decreased 1 percent globally for the fourth quarter and remained flat versus 2020, with a 7 percent growth in unit volume offset by a 7 percent decline in net selling price.
One of the most significant product sales declines was experienced by Enbrel, a highly popular inflammatory treatment drug that experienced a 13 percent year-over-year decline. Contrastingly, Amgen’s osteoporosis treatment Prolia experienced a 17 percent increase year-over-year for the fourth quarter, accounting for $873 million.
Like Prolia, volumes grew double digits for products such as MVASI, Repatha and Evenity.
“We realized strong volume growth for many of our key products during last year,” Robert Bradway, Amgen’s chief executive, said in a statement. “These products, combined with our many pipeline opportunities, position us well for long-term growth.”
For the full year, total revenues increased 2 percent to $26 billion through the company’s manufacturing collaboration with Eli Lilly & Co. that saw the companies collaborate to increase Lilly’s supply capacity of COVID-19 therapies.
Annual GAAP earnings per share decreased 16 percent to $10.28, primarily driven by a write-off of $1.5 billion associated with Amgen’s acquisition of Five Prime Therapeutics.
Amgen ended the year with $8 billion in cash and provided guidance for 2022. The company expects to earn $17 to $18 per share on $25.4 billion to $26.5 billion in sales.
‘Growing portfolio’
In the business review announcement, Amgen outlined a growth strategy through 2030 by significantly increasing the number of patients it serves globally.
“We have a diverse and growing portfolio of medicines in large therapeutic categories that will enable us to drive growth through the end of the decade,” Bradway said. “Looking beyond 2030, we have unique capabilities in early research that will dramatically expand the number of targets we can pursue and the speed and confidence with which we pursue them.”
Amgen’s next generation of medicines will try to address “undruggable” diseases, according to the company.
The company launched 10 novel therapies in large therapeutic categories and five biosimilars in the last decade, a span that also saw Amgen execute $30 billion in deals. It also developed its global presence from about 50 countries in 2012 to about 100 countries today, according to Murdo Gordon, executive vice president of global commercial operations.
Strong long-term growth is expected to come from the Asia-Pacific region, Murdo added.
Amgen is also growing domestically with a recently FDA-licensed next generation drug substance plant in Rhode Island and new plants under construction in North Carolina and Ohio.
According to Ray Deshaies, senior vice president of research and Alan Russell, vice president of biologics, Amgen invested in wet lab automation and dry-lab advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning in the last decade. Deshaies said such advancements are complemented through innovation gained by Amgen’s acquisitions of Nuevolution and TeneoBio, as well as its partnerships with Generate Biomedicines, Arrakis and Plexium.
Amgen has plans to spend between $6 billion and $7 billion this year to buy back shares, including its plans to buy back up to $6 billion of its shares during the first quarter.
Peter Griffith, Amgen’s chief financial officer, said the company plans to return, on average, approximately 60 percent of non-GAAP net income to shareholders through 2030. The returns will be provided through a combination of dividends and share repurchases.
Amgen executives discussed the positioning of several of its products, from inflammation therapeutics and oncological treatments to general medicine, that will supposedly bring strong revenue growth into 2030.
Dr. David Reese, Amgen’s executive vice president of research and development, shared the company’s priority of using human data to benefit high-risk patient populations that will be “fundamental to Amgen’s success now and well into the future.”
Reese described Amgen’s construction of a human data resource comprising 2.5 million genotypes from around the world that are analyzed in real time, giving Amgen the capability to generate insights into diseases and human health.