I have not added to my holdings for a long long time...but if the stock drops below 60 I'll be buying. Great great long term hold.
from earlier tonight.....
Wednesday April 21, 7:05 pm Eastern Time
Amgen shares slump, but new drug said promising
By Deena Beasley
LOS ANGELES, April 21 (Reuters) - The stock of Amgen Inc. (AMGN - news) fell as much as 13 percent on Wednesday, a day after the biotechnology company posted better-than-expected earnings, but said it had discontinued development of several drugs.
Shares of Amgen were down $5.50 at $63.50 in late Nasdaq trading on Wednesday after hitting a low of $60.31 earlier in the session.
Amgen's stock was downgraded by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter to neutral from outperform, but other analysts disagreed, citing a promising outlook for a new treatment for kidney dialysis patients.
David Saks, an analyst at Gruntal & Co., said he was still quite bullish on Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen, which reported first-quarter net income of $247.2 million, up about 32 percent from the year-ago period on continued strong sales of its two lead drugs, Epogen and Neupogen.
''They beat my estimate. In fact, they had a great quarter,'' he said.
Amgen said it expected sales of Epogen, used by kidney dialysis patients, to grow in the low 20-percent range through 1999 while Neupogen, for cancer and AIDS patients, should see high single-digit growth.
But Amgen acknowledged dropping research into one leptin treatment for obesity and diabetes, in favor of two other leptin products. Leptin is natural hormone that may control how the body burns fat.
Amgen also said it was abandoning research into another drug, GDNF, for Parkinson's disease.
Amgen also said it made progress during the quarter on its second-generation Epogen product, NESP, or novel erythropoiesis stimulating protein, for kidney dialysis patients that is progressing rapidly toward an expected FDA filing.
''NESP is a Babe Ruth or Roger Clemens kind of product,'' Saks said, referring to the legendary baseball players. ''What they dropped off were substitute players.''
Amgen said a preliminary analysis of data from 522 trial patients suggested that NESP was safe and effective in both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients.
''NESP has a tremendous market potential,'' said Denis Harp, an analyst at BT Alex, Brown, who expects Amgen to bring the new drug to market in 2001, for annual sales of $250 million.
Harp noted that NESP is designed to compete with Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ - news) Procrit, which saw year-on-year sales increase over 45 percent.
''NESP is a second-generation product. It is delivered once a day by injection, compared with three times a day for Procrit,'' he said. |
