THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. and
INGELHEIM, Germany, Jan. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq:
AMGN) and Boehringer Ingelheim today announced they have signed an
agreement under which Boehringer Ingelheim will acquire Amgen's
rights in and substantially all assets at Amgen's Fremont California development and
manufacturing facility.
The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of
each company and is expected to close in March of this year.
The Amgen Fremont facility currently employs approximately
360 employees and is a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot
manufacturing facility with pilot plant and process development
labs.
"With great enthusiasm, we look forward to welcoming the Amgen
Fremont employees into the Boehringer Ingelheim family of
companies," said Prof. Dr. Wolfram
Carius, Boehringer Ingelheim Board of Managing Directors.
"The technological expertise at Fremont and the state-of-the-art facility will
enable us to further strengthen our global Contract Manufacturing
Business including new biological entity process development and
manufacturing efforts. We greatly value our relationship with Amgen
and are enthusiastic about joining the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community
and for the opportunity to better serve our current and future
contract manufacturing customers."
Boehringer Ingelheim has been a contract manufacturer for Amgen
for more than ten years.
"We are pleased to be able to build upon a successful contract
manufacturing relationship with Boehringer Ingelheim," said
Fabrizio Bonanni, Dr. Chem., Amgen
executive vice president of Operations. "We look forward to
continuing to work closely with them to support Amgen's delivery of
safe and effective medicines to patients around the world."
Amgen obtained the Fremont
facility through its 2006 acquisition of Abgenix. Amgen will
continue to have a key presence in the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community
through its South San Francisco
facility, one of the company's key research centers.
About Amgen
Amgen discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers innovative
human therapeutics. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen was
one of the first companies to realize the new science's promise by
bringing safe and effective medicines from lab, to manufacturing
plant, to patient. Amgen therapeutics have changed the practice of
medicine, helping millions of people around the world in the fight
against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis,
psoriatic arthritis and other serious illnesses. With a deep and
broad pipeline of potential new medicines, Amgen remains committed
to advancing science to dramatically improve people's lives. To
learn more about our pioneering science and our vital medicines,
visit www.amgen.com.
About Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's leading companies for
contract development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. All
types of services from mammalian cell line or microbial strain
development to final drug production and global market supply can
be delivered within a one-stop-shop concept. Boehringer Ingelheim
has brought 18 molecules to market and has many years of experience
in multiple molecule classes such as monoclonal antibodies,
recombinant proteins, interferons, enzymes, fusion molecules, novel
scaffold proteins and plasmid DNA. For more information please
visit www.biopharma-cmo.com.
The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading
pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 142
affiliates in 50 countries and more than 41,500 employees. For over
125 years, the family-owned company has been committed to
researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products
of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. In
2009, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of 12.7 billion euro while spending 21% of net sales
in its largest business segment Prescription Medicines on research
and development. For more information please visit
www.boehringer-ingelheim.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements that
involve significant risks and uncertainties, including those
discussed below and others that can be found in our Form 10-K for
the year ended Dec. 31, 2009, and in
our periodic reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K. Amgen is
providing this information as of the date of this news release and
does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking
statements contained in this document as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual
results may differ materially from those we project. The
Company's results may be affected by our ability to successfully
market both new and existing products domestically and
internationally, clinical and regulatory developments (domestic or
foreign) involving current and future products, sales growth of
recently launched products, competition from other products
(domestic or foreign) and difficulties or delays in manufacturing
our products. In addition, sales of our products are affected
by reimbursement policies imposed by third-party payors, including
governments, private insurance plans and managed care providers and
may be affected by regulatory, clinical and guideline developments
and domestic and international trends toward managed care and
health care cost containment as well as U.S. legislation affecting
pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement. Government and
others' regulations and reimbursement policies may affect the
development, usage and pricing of our products. Furthermore,
our research, testing, pricing, marketing and other operations are
subject to extensive regulation by domestic and foreign government
regulatory authorities. We or others could identify safety,
side effects or manufacturing problems with our products after they
are on the market. Our business may be impacted by government
investigations, litigation and product liability claims.
Further, while we routinely obtain patents for our products
and technology, the protection offered by our patents and patent
applications may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented by our
competitors. We depend on third parties for a significant
portion of our manufacturing capacity for the supply of certain of
our current and future products and limits on supply may constrain
sales of certain of our current products and product candidate
development. In addition, we compete with other companies
with respect to some of our marketed products as well as for the
discovery and development of new products. Discovery or
identification of new product candidates cannot be guaranteed and
movement from concept to product is uncertain; consequently, there
can be no guarantee that any particular product candidate will be
successful and become a commercial product. Further, some raw
materials, medical devices and component parts for our products are
supplied by sole third-party suppliers.
CONTACT: Amgen,
Thousand Oaks
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Mary Klem, 805-447-6979
(media)
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Arvind Sood, 805-447-1060
(investors)
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Contact:
Boehringer Ingelheim
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U.S. Media Inquiries:
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Jason Kurtz, Communications
& PR
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440-201-3668
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Jason.Kurtz@boehringer-ingelheim.com
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Outside the U.S.:
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Heidrun Thoma, Corporate
Communications, Germany
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49/6132 77 3966
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Heidrun.Thoma@boehringer-ingelheim.com
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Media + PR
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Boehringer Ingelheim
GmbH
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55216
Ingelheim/Germany
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E-mail: press@boehringer-ingelheim.com
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Twitter: www.twitter.com/boehringer
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(Logo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081015/AMGENLOGO)
(Logo:
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SOURCE Amgen