Soft but Reliable Growth: Growth of a number of established products, XGEVA (bone metastases), Prolia (osteoporosis), Nplate (thrombocytopenia), Vectibix (metastatic colorectal cancer), and Sensipar (secondary hyperparathyroidism), should help to offset some of the risk of anticipated branded and biosimilar competition against Neulasta and
Epogen and existing competition against Neupogen.
The 50-50joint venture was launched in 1984 to fund the global development of
Epogen (epoetin alfa) and, over time, was expanded to include Neupogen (filgrastim), Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa), Nplate (romiplostim) and brodalumab.
Kirin-Amgen was established in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture between Amgen and Kirin to fund the global development of
Epogen (epoetin alfa).
The first EPO drug -
Epogen (Erythropoietin alfa), launched by Amgen, has witnessed patent expiry in 2014.
To remain profitable, dialysis units shortened treatment times ("high efficiency dialysis," which was a disaster for patients though EBM suggested otherwise), and made margins selling injectable drugs such as
Epogen, iron, and vitamin D analogues.
Amgen shares were punished for the revenue miss, analysts will be forced to moderate their revenue models for Kyprolis, Prolia, if not for Enbrel and
Epogen. Fine.
The top five were epoetin-alfa (
Epogen), rituximab (Rituxan), ranibizumab (Lucentis), bevacizumab (Avastin), and infliximab (Remicade).
Darbepoetin alfa, marketed as Arandesp, and epoetin alfa, marketed as
Epogen o and Procrit, are the ESAs approved in the United States; they are administered as often as one to three times per week.
EPOGEN (epoetin alfa) sales decreased 18 percent to $486 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 versus $591 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The service sees double-digit reduction in
Epogen sales for 2011-2012 due to a new reimbursement system for dialysis.