Amgen Cuts Hard

Amgen cuts over 2,500 jobs. Amgen completely shuts down its big facilities in Washington state and Colorado. Amgen's stock goes up nearly 7% in one day, adding about five (corrected late-night mistake) billion dollars in market cap. And there you have it. That's the industry. As this FierceBiotech piece says, Amgen's big shareholders have been unhappy with the way the company has been performing during the recent biotech bull market. This also puts the company in line with all the other big outfits who have been trimming staff and consolidating research sites in the past few years. It also puts them in line with all the companies who have been consolidating particularly in the Boston/Cambridge and San Francisco Bay areas - this Boston Globe article says that positions will actually be added in both of those Amgen locations. So no one can say that they're behind the times now. And if you'd like to know more about just what state the industry is in, have a look at analyst Geoffrey Porges' take on Amgen's portfolio. It's too damn innovative, he says: Over the last 10 years, the company has spent about $30 billion on R&D--including buyouts--but generated just $15 billion in cumulative revenue from the resulting drugs, he points out in a research note Friday. And, looking at Amgen's current pipeline, Porges doesn't see that ratio evening out any time soon. That's because of Amgen's affinity for risk. Compared to its Big Biotech peers, the company has a pipeline particularly lo...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs