It’s been about one year since Amgen closed its $27.8 billion Horizon Therapeutics buyout and brought the rare disease drug maker’s clutch of approved therapies under its fold. With Horizon’s thyroid eye disease treatment Tepezza gradually growing under Amgen's stewardship, the company is reaping the M&A rewards by posting a 23% sales increase.
The California-based drugmaker pulled in $8.5 billion in revenue during the third quarter, a 23% increase compared with the same period in 2023. Taking out sales derived from the Horizon acquisition, however, puts the company's growth rate at 8%.
The showing prompted Amgen to raise its 2024 revenue outlook to a range of $33 billion to $33.8 billion, a $200 million boost at the low end from the company's previous projection.
Amgen’s rare disease portfolio is largely made up of Horizon products and contributed a sizable $1.2 billion chunk of the total sales haul. Tepezza brought in $488 million in quarterly sales, marking another increase since Amgen took over the drug, which once achieved $616 million in quarterly sales back in 2021 before its upward trajectory began to slide.
The company remains confident in Tepezza's long-term potential, Amgen's head of global commercial operations and medical affairs rare disease, Vikram Karnani, said on the company's earnings conference call. Thyroid eye disease has a U.S. patient population of about 100,000, but Tepezza's market penetration is so far only in the single-digit percentages, Karnani explained.
Overall, during the quarter, 10 of Amgen’s meds delivered double-digit sales growth, including heart med Repatha and AstraZeneca-partnered asthma biologic Tezspire. The brands are “important to our future growth trajectory,” Amgen's head of global commercial operations, Murdo Gordon, said on the call.
Repatha, which has been marketed since 2015 and holds several heart health indications, flexed 40% year-over-year growth to $567 million. The medicine “retains category leadership” while still generating growth across major markets despite increased competition, Gordon noted.
Blockbuster bone med Prolia was Amgen’s top sales driver during the quarter, collecting $1 billion in worldwide sales. Prolia and Repatha together are expected to reach more than 11 million patients this year, Gordon said.
As for Amgen’s “industry leading” biosimilar franchise, as CEO Robert Bradway put it, next year will see the rollout of Wezlana, a biosimilar to Johnson & Johnson’s blockbuster immunology drug Stelara.
While it gears up for that launch, Amgen has its hands full with its Pavblu after winning FDA approval in August for the biosimilar to Regeneron’s Eylea. During the third quarter, the company “fully deployed” its team to support the U.S. launch and has so far received “enthusiastic feedback” from customers, Gordon said.
Elsewhere in Amgen’s biosimilar pipeline, the company is running trials of its biosim versions of oncology powerhouses Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and Merck’s Keytruda.