AMGEN, the world's biggest biotechnology company, made its fortune from a drug that fortifies the blood of patients who are undergoing dialysis. On December 17th, the California company acquired some new blood of its own with the purchase of Immunex, a Seattle-based biotechnology company, for $16 billion.
This deal, a biotech-industry record, gives Amgen a firm footing in the multibillion-dollar market in inflammation control. Immunex's most profitable product is Enbrel, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.(46) {{U}}Amgen hopes to triple the drug's sales to more than $3 billion by 2005, widening its use to other diseases and overcoming manufacturing constraints that have kept the drug in short supply{{/U}}.
With this takeover, Immunex passes from one parent to another. American Home Products (AHP) holds 41% of the shares, and has given the firm sales and marketing support. (47){{U}}But AHP (American Household Products) has been selling down its stake since last year, in part to finance a $3.8 billion settlement of claims against its diet drugs.{{/U}}
(48){{U}}Although Amen calls itself a biotech company, its market capitalisation of around $62 billion makes it larger than Pharmacia and several other well-known mainstream drug companies, traditionally considered the big brothers of biotech{{/U}}. But Amgen likes to think of itself as less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial than its pharmaceutical brethren, and it is free of such big-pharma woes as imminent patent expiry. (49){{U}}However, as J ose2oh Dougherty, a biotech analyst at Lehman Brothers, points out, -Amgen will find it hard to retain the freedom of its youth as it strives to expand its sales by more than 30% a year{{/U}}.
Historically, pharmaceutical companies have used their deep pockets to buy biotech companies. Now. increasingly, biotech companies are buying each other (see chart). Such industry consolidation is driven by strategy rather than desperation, according to Scott Morrison. a consultant with Ernst & Young. (50){{U}}Companies are pooling their resources to build scale in research and development, and in sales, or to fill holes-in their product pipelines, as Amgen has just done{{/U}}. With almost 1,400 biotech companies in America, and a comparable number in Europe, there is plenty of room for more togetherness.