Amgen's Repatha, Evenity & Blincyto Drive Sales This Earnings Season
Amgen's total revenues in the second quarter rose 9% year over year to $9.2 billion. Total product revenues increased 9% from the year-ago quarter to $8.77 billion. With the selling prices of most drugs declining, volume growth has been a key differentiator for Amgen.
Fifteen of Amgen's products, including Repatha, Blincyto, Tezspire, Uplizna, Tavneos and Evenity, achieved double-digit volume growth in the quarter. These key drugs, as well as newer medicines like Imdelltra, Tavneos and Tezspire, drove sales, more than offsetting declining revenues from oncology biosimilars and legacy established products such as Enbrel. Rare disease drugs are also boosting top-line growth. Newer biosimilar products are also contributing to sales growth.
Let us discuss how some of its key drugs performed in the quarter.
So far this year, Amgen's stock has risen 11.1% compared to no change for the industry.
Repatha, Evenity Drive General Medicine Growth
In general medicine, Repatha is Amgen's key drug, which is now a multi-billion-dollar product. Repatha generated revenues of $696.0 million, up 31% year over year, driven by higher volume growth. Repatha volumes rose 36%, driven by improved access in the United States. Volume growth was partially offset by lower prices due to higher rebates to support expanded access and unfavorable changes to estimated sales deductions. Repatha sales beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $672.0 million and our model estimate of $663.8 million.
Evenity recorded sales of $518 million in the quarter, up 32% year over year, driven by solid volume growth in the United States. Evenity sales beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $478.0 million as well as our model estimate of $461.8 million.
Prolia revenues came in at $1.12 billion, down 4% from the year-ago quarter due to lower pricing. Prolia sales were in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate but slightly beat our model estimate of $1.01 billion.
AMGN's Rare Disease Drug Sales Improve
Turning to rare disease. Amgen's four key growth drivers, Tepezza, Krystexxa, Uplizna and Tavneos, are all early in their life cycles and well-positioned for long-term growth.
Sales of rare disease drugs rose 19% year over year, delivering nearly $1.4 billion in sales in the quarter. Amgen's rare disease drug sales are now annualizing at over $5 billion.
Tepezza sales rose 5% year over year to $505 million due to higher inventory levels. Amgen launched Tepezza in Japan in December 2024. On the call, the company mentioned that the launch progress in Japan was encouraging.
Krystexxa sales rose 19% year over year to $349.0 million, driven by volume growth and higher inventory levels. Uplizna rose 91% year over year to $176.0 million, backed by volume growth and higher inventory levels. Uplizna sales also benefited from the FDA approval in April for use in IgG4-related disease.
Ultra-rare products generated revenues of $183.0 million in the quarter, down 2% year over year.
Another rare disease drug, Tavneos, generated $110 million in sales in the quarter, up 55% year over year, driven by new patient volume growth.
AMGN's Oncology Portfolio Remains Strong
Amgen's innovative oncology portfolio, including Blincyto, Imdelltra, Lumakras, Vectibix, Kyprolis, Nplate and Xgeva, grew 14% year over year, generating over $2.2 billion in sales in the quarter.
In oncology, the key revenue driver was Blincyto, which generated $384 million in sales, rising 45% from the year-ago period, driven by broad prescribing across both academic and community segments.
Xgeva delivered revenues of $532 million, down 5% year over year due to unfavorable changes to estimated sales deductions and volume decline. Xgeva sales beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $508.0 million as well as our model estimate of $506.4 million.
Kyprolis recorded sales of $378 million, flat year over year. Vectibix revenues came in at $305 million, up 13% year over year, driven by volume growth. Nplate sales rose 7% to $369.0 million. Lumakras/Lumykras recorded sales of $90 million in the quarter, up 6% from the year-ago period.
New cancer drug Imdelltra (tarlatamab) recorded sales of $134 million in the second quarter compared with $81 million in the previous quarter. The drug's 65% sequential growth was driven by volume growth.
New Biosimilars Contribute to AMGN's Sales Growth
In the second quarter, Amgen's biosimilar portfolio sales grew 40% year over year to $661 million.
Since the first launch in 2018, Amgen's biosimilars have delivered almost $12 billion in sales, significantly contributing to top-line growth and generating meaningful cash flows.
While sales of Amgen's older biosimilars, Mvasi (biosimilar of Roche 's [
RHHBY
] Avastin), Kanjinti (a biosimilar of Roche's Herceptin) and Amjevita (biosimilar of AbbVie's Humira) are being hurt by continued sales erosion, driven by competition, its new biosimilar products have begun to contribute to growth.
Amgen launched a biosimilar version of J&J 's JNJ blockbuster drug, Stelara, called Wezlana, in January and Regeneron's Eylea, called Pavblu, in late 2024.
As expected, Amgen did not record any sales from Wezlana in the United States in the second quarter following a large first-quarter order. Total Wezlana sales were $35 million, entirely from ex-U.S. markets.
Amgen expects quarterly sales of Wezlana and Amjevita to fluctuate and does not expect any sales in the third quarter.
Pavblu generated sales of $130 million in the second quarter versus $99 million in the first quarter of 2025.
Bekemv, a biosimilar version of AstraZeneca 's AZN Soliris, was approved in the United States in May 2024 and was launched in the second quarter of 2025.
AMGN's Inflammation Drugs
In its inflammation portfolio, sales of Otezla were $618.0 million in the quarter, up 14% driven by volume growth and favorable changes to estimated sales deductions. Otezla sales beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $535.0 million as well as our estimate of $504.1 million.
Enbrel revenues of $604 million declined 34% year over year due to lower selling prices (including the impact from increased 340B program mix and Medicare Part D redesign) and unfavorable changes to estimated sales deductions, which offset the impact of volume growth. Enbrel sales missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $804.0 million as well as our estimate of $816.3 million.
Asthma drug Tezspire (tezepelumab) recorded sales of $342.0 million in the quarter, up 46% year over year, driven by volume growth. Tezspire sales beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $326.0 million as well as our estimate of $250.7 million.
Amgen has a partnership with AstraZeneca for Tezspire. Amgen and AstraZeneca share costs and profits equally after AstraZeneca pays a mid-single-digit inventor royalty to Amgen. While AstraZeneca leads development, Amgen leads manufacturing.
AMGN's Established Products
Total sales of established products, which include Aranesp, Parsabiv and Neulasta, decreased 5% year over year in the quarter to $533 million.
AMGN's Outlook for 2025
Amgen slightly raised its revenue and earnings outlook for 2025. Total revenues are expected in the range of $35.0 billion to $36.0 billion, slightly more than the prior expectation of $34.3 billion to $35.7 billion.
Amgen expects key drugs like Repatha, Evenity, Tezspire and oncology and rare disease drugs, as well as biosimilars, to drive top-line growth in 2025. However, the biosimilar erosion of Prolia/Xgeva and continued price declines across its portfolio of drugs will partially offset the growth.
Patents for RANKL antibodies, Prolia and Xgeva, expired in February 2025 in the United States, while the same will expire in some European countries in November 2025. Sales of these best-selling drugs are expected to erode significantly from the second half of 2025 as three biosimilars are now launched in the U.S. markets.
AMGN's Zacks Rank
Amgen currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
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