After market closed Wednesday, Amgen announced it is cutting 12% to 14% of its staff, or 2,200 to 2,600 jobs, as part of a restructuring. The biotech company also reduced its 2007 adjusted earnings forecast to a range of $4.13 to $4.23 a share from its earlier view of $4.28 a share. The company admitted recently it must cut costs to adapt to its new reality of shrinking revenues from its cash-cow anemia drugs.
Epogen and Aranesp, both bioengineered forms of the red-blood-cell boosting protein erythropoeitin, tallied $6.6 billion of Amgen's $14 billion in sales last year. But safety concerns have led to regulatory warnings and tightened rules on how government programs can reimburse the use of the drugs. Sales are likely to fall short of 2006 levels. Despite the slump, the biotech giant has remained an aggressive buyer, with two midmarket takeouts of private firms in June that totaled $740 million. —Alex Lash
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Tags: Biotech, pharmaceutical
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