Amgen Weighs Acquisition to Boost Products

Amgen Corp. would like to boost earnings and broaden its three-drug product line by buying another biotechnology company that’s close to bringing a drug to market, the company’s chief executive said. “We keep looking,” said Gordon Binder, chairman and CEO of Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company. A new product could boost Amgen’s earnings, which fell last year for the first time since 1994 as the government cut payments on one of the company’s two $1-billion-a-year blockbuster drugs and the dollar’s appreciation hurt overseas earnings. While Amgen plans to introduce five products over the next five years, Binder said those at the front of that pipeline are unlikely to be big sellers. The stock has been hurt by concern about slowing growth of the company’s two major products--Neupogen, an immune system drug, and Epogen, used to treat anemia in patients on dialysis. In October, Amgen introduced a third product, the hepatitis drug Infergen, which had 1997 sales of $3 million. Amgen shares fell 31 cents to close at $52.44 on Nasdaq.