For years, the biotechnology giant Amgen has wielded a near monopoly over its industry's most lucrative franchise, the anemia drugs on which hundreds of thousands of American kidney and cancer patients and their insurers spend billions of dollars each year. But now, Amgen's money machine is coming under attack.Technorati Tags: Amgen, Aranesp, Epoetin, Procrit, Roche, CERA
A host of companies - ranging from the Swiss giant Roche to Silicon Valley start-ups - are developing anemia drugs to compete against Epogen and Aranesp, the blockbusters that will account for nearly half of Amgen's expected $12 billion in revenues this year.
I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Rivals Laying Siege to Amgen's Near Monopoly in Anemia Drugs
From The New York Times: