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Globe and Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Amgen's Repatha, Evenity & Blincyto Drive Sales This Earnings Season
Amgen AMGN delivered yet another strong quarterly performance. Its second-quarter 2025 earnings and sales beat estimates. The company has been recording consistently strong top-line performance. 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 See our %%CTA_TEXT%% report – free today! 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AstraZeneca PLC (AZN): Free Stock Analysis Report Roche Holding AG (RHHBY): Free Stock Analysis Report Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): Free Stock Analysis Report Amgen Inc. (AMGN): Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Amgen Inc. Reports Strong Q2 2025 Financial Results
Amgen Inc ( (AMGN)) has released its Q2 earnings. Here is a breakdown of the information Amgen Inc presented to its investors. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Amgen Inc., a leading biotechnology company, specializes in developing innovative medicines for serious diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and rare conditions. In its recent earnings report for the second quarter of 2025, Amgen announced a 9% increase in total revenues, reaching $9.2 billion, with product sales also growing by 9%. The company's GAAP earnings per share saw a significant rise of 92%, driven by increased revenues, while non-GAAP EPS rose by 21%. Key products such as Repatha and EVENITY showed strong double-digit sales growth, and the company continued to invest in its research and development programs, including the promising MariTide studies. Looking ahead, Amgen remains focused on sustainable, long-term growth, with a projected revenue range of $35.0 billion to $36.0 billion for the full year 2025, and continued investment in its robust pipeline of innovative treatments.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
This One Test Will Tell You More About Your Heart Attack Risk
A long list of Lynda Hollander's paternal relatives had heart disease, and several had undergone major surgeries. So when she hit her mid-50s and saw her cholesterol levels creeping up after menopause, she said, 'I didn't want to take a chance.' A cardiologist told Hollander that based on factors like age, sex, cholesterol, and blood pressure, she faced a moderate risk of a major cardiac event, like a heart attack, within the next 10 years. Doctors typically counsel such patients about the importance of diet and exercise, but Hollander, now 64, a social worker in West Orange, New Jersey, didn't have much room for improvement. She was already a serious runner, and although 'I fall off the wagon once in a while,' her diet was basically healthy. Attempts to lose weight didn't lower her cholesterol. Her doctor explained that a coronary artery calcium test, something Hollander had never heard of, could provide a more precise estimate of her risk of atherosclerotic heart disease. A brief and painless CT scan, it would indicate whether calcifications and plaque were developing in the arteries leading to her heart. When plaque ruptures, it can cause clots that block blood flow and trigger heart attacks. The scan would help determine whether Hollander would benefit from taking a statin, which could reduce plaque and prevent more from forming. 'The test is used by more people every year,' said Michael Blaha, co-director of the preventive cardiology program at Johns Hopkins University. Calcium scans quadrupled from 2006 to 2017, his research team reported, and Google searches for related terms have risen even more sharply. Yet 'it's still being underused compared to its value,' he said. One reason is that although the test is comparatively inexpensive — sometimes up to $300, but often $100 or less — patients usually must pay for it out-of-pocket. Medicare rarely covers it, though some doctors argue that it should. Patients with a CAC score of zero — no calcification — have lower risk than their initial assessments indicate and aren't candidates for cholesterol-lowering drugs. But Hollander's score was in the 50s — not high but not negligible. 'It was the first indication of what was going on inside my arteries,' she said. Though guidelines vary, cardiologists generally offer statins to patients with calcium scores over zero, and suggest higher intensity statins when scores exceed 100. At over 300, patients' risks approach those of people who've already had heart attacks; they may need still more aggressive treatment. Hollander has taken a low dose of rosuvastatin (brand name: Crestor) ever since, supplemented by a non-statin drug, a shot called evolocumab (Repatha). This is the way calcium testing is supposed to work. It's not a screening test for everyone. It's intended only for selected asymptomatic patients, ages 40 to 75, who have never had a heart attack or a stroke and are not already on cholesterol drugs. The test helps answer a pointed question: to statin, or not to statin. If a doctor calculates the 10-year risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease at 5 percent or lower, drugs are unnecessary for now. Over 20 percent, 'there's no doubt the risk is sufficiently high to justify medication,' said Philip Greenland, a preventive cardiologist at Northwestern University and co-author of a recent review in JAMA. 'It's the in-between range where it's more uncertain,' he said, including 'borderline' risk of 5 percent to 7.5 percent and 'intermediate' risk of 7.5 percent to 20 percent. Why add another measurement to these assessments, which already incorporate risk factors like smoking and diabetes? 'A risk score is derived from a large population, with mathematical modeling,' Blaha explained. 'We can say that this score describes the risk of heart disease among thousands of people. But there are lots of limitations in applying them to one individual.' A calcium scan, however, produces an image of one individual's arteries. Alexander Zheutlin, a cardiology fellow and researcher at Northwestern University, shows patients their images, so that they can see the lighter-colored calcifications. Cardiologists tend to be fans of calcium testing, because they so regularly encounter patients who are reluctant to take statins. People who feel fine may hesitate to start drugs they'll take for the rest of their lives, despite statins' proven history of reducing heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac deaths. In 2019, a survey of almost 5,700 adults for whom statin therapy was recommended found that a quarter were not in treatment. Of those, 10 percent had declined a statin and 30 percent had started and then discontinued, primarily citing fear of side effects. An American College of Cardiology expert consensus report recently put the rate of muscle pain, statin users' most common complaint, at 5 percent to 20 percent. Researchers consider the fear of side effects overblown, citing studies showing that reports of muscle pain were comparable whether patients took statins or placebos. 'The actual risk is much, much lower than the perceived risk,' Zheutlin said. That may be little comfort to people who are in pain, but cardiologists argue that reducing doses or switching to different statins usually solves the problem. Some patients will do better on a non-statin cholesterol drug. Hollander, for example, suffered 'muscle cramps that would wake me up at night.' Her doctor advised fewer doses, so Hollander now takes Crestor three days a week and self-injects Repatha twice monthly. (Statins also carry a very low risk of a dangerous condition, rhabdomyolysis, that causes muscle breakdown, and they slightly increase the chance of diabetes.) Some caveats: No one has undertaken a randomized clinical trial to show whether calcium testing eventually reduces heart attacks and cardiac deaths. That's why, although several professional associations endorse calcium scans to help determine treatment, the independent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has called the current evidence 'insufficient' to recommend widespread use. Such a trial would be expensive and difficult to mount, with many confounding variables. And pharmaceutical companies aren't eager to underwrite one, since a successful result could mean that patients with zero scores avoid cholesterol drugs altogether. But a recent Australian study of asymptomatic patients with family histories of coronary artery disease found that, after three years, those who had undergone calcium scans had a sustained reduction in cholesterol and a significantly lower risk of heart disease than those who had not been tested. The test 'leads to more statin prescriptions, better adherence to statins, less progression of atherosclerosis, and less plaque growth,' Greenland said of the study, in which he was not involved. Another concern: people age 75 and older. Most will have arterial plaque, making a scan's benefit 'less clear-cut,' said Zheutlin, lead author of a recent JAMA Cardiology article pointing out that CAC testing can be both overused and underused. Because older adults face more chronic diseases and medical issues, cholesterol-lowering may become a lower priority. A study now enrolling participants over 75 should answer some questions about statins, calcium scans, and dementia in a few years. Meanwhile, cardiologists see calcium scans as a persuasive tool. 'It's incredibly frustrating,' Zheutlin said. With statins, 'we have cheap, safe, effective drugs available at any pharmacy' that help prevent heart attacks. If CAC test results prove more influential than traditional risk assessments alone, he said, more patients might agree to take them. A calcium scan helped Stephen Patrick, 70, a retired tech executive in San Francisco, reach that point. 'For years, I was borderline on cholesterol, and I managed to beat it back with less cheese toast' and lots of exercise, he said. 'I was on no meds, and I took pride in that.' Last fall, with both his total and his LDL cholesterol higher than recommended, his doctor suggested a calcium scan. His score: 176. He's taking atorvastatin (Lipitor) daily, and his cholesterol levels have dropped dramatically. 'I might have tried it anyway,' he said. 'But the calcium score meant I had to pay more attention.' The New Old Age is produced through a partnership with The New York Times. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF. The post This One Test Will Tell You More About Your Heart Attack Risk appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Amgen Lifts 2025 Guidance After Drug Sales Beat Expectations
By Updated on Save Amgen Inc. boosted its 2025 guidance after quarterly results beat Wall Street's estimates on the back of strong sales from older medicines such as the cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha. The biotechnology company now expects full-year revenue of as much as $36 billion up from its prior forecast of as much as $35.7 billion. It also lifted the high end of its adjusted profit guidance by 10 cents a share.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Amgen quarterly results beat Wall Street estimates
By Deena Beasley (Reuters) -Amgen on Tuesday posted quarterly financial results that beat Wall Street expectations as a 9% increase in product sales offset higher operating expenses. The California-based biotech company's second-quarter revenue rose 9% from a year earlier to $9.2 billion. Adjusted earnings per share increased 21% to $6.02. Analysts had expected an adjusted profit of $5.29 on revenue of $8.94 billion, according to LSEG data. Second-quarter net earnings were $2.65 per share. "We're delivering strong performance and reaching more patients with innovative medicines and biosimilars that address serious diseases," Amgen CEO Robert Bradway said in a statement. Sales of cholesterol-lowering medication Repatha rose 31% to $696 million. Sales of bone drug Prolia fell 4% to $1.1 billion and the company said it expects further erosion this year due to new competition from biosimilars. Adjusted operating expenses rose 8% from a year earlier, while research and development costs rose 18%. The company said it expects to have data in the fourth quarter from two key mid-stage studies of its experimental weight-loss drug MariTide. One is testing the drug in obese or overweight adults with or without type 2 diabetes, while the second is looking at MariTide as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. MariTide is an antibody linked to a pair of peptides that activate receptors for the appetite- and blood sugar-reducing hormone GLP-1 while simultaneously blocking a second gut hormone called GIP. For the full year, Amgen slightly raised its financial outlook to adjusted earnings per share of $20.20 to $21.30 on revenue of $35 billion to $36 billion. It had previously forecast earnings of $20.00 to $21.20 per share on revenue of $34.3 billion to $35.7 billion. Analysts, on average, have estimated 2025 earnings of $20.91 per share on revenue of $35.4 billion. The company said its 2025 outlook includes the impact of implemented tariffs, but does not account for any future levies, including potential sector-specific tariffs, or pricing actions that could be implemented in the future. The pharmaceutical industry is facing intense pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to lower prices that Americans pay for prescription medicines, while preparing for 15% tariffs on imports from the European Union. (Reporting By Deena BeasleyEditing by Bill Berkrot)
