Thursday, April 19, 2007

Amgen - Aranesp: a billion dollar study

Amgen said on Thursday that its anemia drug Aranesp showed no difference in risk of death compared with a placebo in a closely watched study of the medicine in small-cell lung cancer patients, sending its shares up more than 6 percent.

Aranesp and similar anemia drugs have been under fire amid concerns that they have been used too aggressively and could be harming patients.

Industry analysts have called results of this study critical to future use of Amgen's most important product. Aranesp had sales of about $4.1 billion last year, and along with its predecessor Epogen accounted for roughly half of Amgen's sales.

Had study 145 -- the first involving this class of drugs to specifically have survival as a primary goal -- shown that Aranesp increased the risk of death in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, it would likely have wiped out the lion's share of Aranesp sales. Chemotherapy-induced anemia is by far the most important indication for Aranesp.

More at Reuters

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