{"id":11228,"date":"2007-08-18T00:21:47","date_gmt":"2007-08-17T22:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/amgen-taglia-14-forza-lavoro\/"},"modified":"2007-08-18T00:21:47","modified_gmt":"2007-08-17T22:21:47","slug":"amgen-taglia-14-forza-lavoro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/amgen-taglia-14-forza-lavoro\/","title":{"rendered":"Amgen cuts 14% workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"
Amgen ha annunciato un piano di riorganizzazione che prevederà nel 2008 il taglio del 14% della sua forza lavoro (tra 2200 e 2600 le persone coinvolte) a causa delle perdite in redditività del proprio farmaco contro l’anemia, Aranesp, che ha subito recenti restrizioni da parte della FDA.<\/div>\n
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Amgen can’t escape Big Pharma’s problems<\/span>
CNN Money del 16\/08\/2007 , articolo di By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer     <\/p>\n

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Biotech’s reputation as a fast-growing and innovative industry, is at risk now that biotech giant Amgen is running into the same old problems that have plagued Big Pharma for years — flagging blockbusters and a thin pipeline.
Amgen’s (down $1.73 to $48.86, Charts , Fortune 500 ) stock slid more than 2 percent in Thursday trading, after the biotech giant said on Wednesday that it would cut up to 2,600 employees, or up to 14 percent of its workforce, <\/span>to save $1.3 billion in pre-tax savings in 2008.<\/p>\n

Cost-cutting to make up for lower sales and weak pipelines is an old story for Big Pharma companies like Pfizer Inc. (down $0.37 to $23.16, Charts , Fortune 500 ) and Merck & Co., Inc., (down $1.32 to $48.46, Charts , Fortune 500 ) but it’s a new dynamic for Big Biotech.<\/p>\n

“Ever since last year, [Amgen has] started to look more like Big Pharma,” said Vasavi Vittal, analyst for Atlantic Equities.<\/p>\n

Amgen is facing sliding sales of its anti-anemia blockbusters, Aranesp and Epogen, which have been hampered by concerns about side effects, regulatory issues and insurance troubles. The biotech is cutting staff to offset a lack of growth.<\/p>\n

Vittal said the downward spiral for Amgen’s flagship franchise Aranesp and Epogen has been building for some time. To replace those sales, Amgen is counting on its lead pipeline candidate: denosumab (d-mab for short), which is a possible treatment for post-menopausal osteoporosis, cancer and other diseases.<\/p>\n

“If denosumab fails, it’s going to put them in a difficult situation, even more difficult that it is now,” said Vittal. “Amgen needs to get denosumab to work. A lot is riding on denosumab.”<\/p>\n

Sales for Aranesp, which wards off depletion of red blood cells during chemotherapy, fell 10 percent to $949 million in the second quarter of 2007, from the same period last year.<\/p>\n

Aranesp and its sister drug Epogen, as well as the Johnson & Johnson (down $0.26 to $61.04, Charts , Fortune 500 ) competitor Procrit, have aroused concerns they could cause sometimes-fatal side effects, prompting the Food and Drug Administration to ramp up warning labels back in March. This helped take a 26 percent bite out of Amgen’s stock, through Aug. 15 this year.<\/p>\n

In addition, Amgen said on Wednesday that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services imposed new restrictions on coverage for Aranesp, which could further deplete sales. The company reduced its earnings guidance for 2007, to a range of $4.13 to $4.23, from $4.28 a share.<\/p>\n

Christopher Raymond, analyst for R.W. Baird, wrote in a published note that his “largest concern” about the biotech is that insurance companies will follow Medicare and Medicaid and tighten their policies on Aranesp coverage, further eroding sales.<\/p>\n

Analysts said they will be closely watching two other potential threats on the horizon: an FDA advisory meeting on Sept. 11 about Aranesp, as well as a patent battle that Amgen is waging with the Swiss drug giant Roche, which is trying to get a potential competitor, CERA, on the U.S. market.<\/p>\n

Amgen ha annunciato un piano di riorganizzazione che prevederà nel 2008 il taglio del 14% della sua forza lavoro (tra 2200 e 2600 le persone coinvolte) a causa delle perdite in redditività del proprio farmaco contro l’anemia, Aranesp, che ha subito recenti restrizioni da parte della FDA.   —————————————————————- Amgen can’t escape Big Pharma’s problemsCNN …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fedaiisf-archivio-storico"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fedaiisf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}