Amgen Inc. (AMGN) Presents at J.P. Morgan 42nd Annual Healthcare Conference 2024 (Transcript)

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) J.P. Morgan 42nd Annual Healthcare Conference 2024 January 8, 2024 ET

Company Participants

Robert Bradway – Chairman & CEO

Conference Call Participants

Chris Schott – J.P. Morgan

Chris Schott

Good morning, everybody. I’m Chris Schott at J.P. Morgan, and it’s my pleasure to be introducing Amgen today. From the company, we have Bob Bradway, the company’s Chairman and CEO. Obviously, a very productive 2023 for the company and really looking forward to Bob’s comments as we think about the story going forward. So with that, I’ll turn it over to Bob.

Robert Bradway

Okay. Good morning. Thank you, Chris, for your introduction, and thank you all for being here this morning. I would say heading into 2024 at Amgen, we’re feeling very enthusiastic about the prospects of our being able to deliver attractive long-term growth for our shareholders and real value for the patients and staff at the company. So we’re excited about the long-term outlook for our business, but also excited about what’s in prospect in 2024.

Okay. You’re familiar with the safe harbor statement. I’ll move off that briskly. Let me just quickly remind you, of course, that our strategy is to advance innovative medicines against serious illness. And these are the illnesses that our medicines addressed today, and we address these illnesses with what is really a compelling collection of innovative first-in-class medicines against those very serious diseases.

Now as Chris said, 2023 was an eventful year for us, another year in which I hope you would agree that our say-do ratio was again very tightly aligned. So a year in which we did the things that we told you we would try to do for the year. And that included delivering double-digit growth across a range of products and geographies. So importantly, the medicines that are already on the market and expected to be long-term growth drivers for us, performed very well in 2023.

In addition, we generated tremendous progress in our pipeline in 2023, including three products having been designated breakthrough therapies by FDA, and we’re excited about the medicines that are advancing towards registration as well as some of the medicines that are at an earlier stage in our pipeline.

We created formally a rare disease business unit inside our business to integrate Tavneos with the products that we acquired from Horizon. We advanced our biosimilar business again in 2023. And I think we’ve now firmly established our global leadership position in that segment of our business. We continue to maintain our track record of uninterrupted supply of our medicines around the world and delivered attractive financial results during the course of the year and then finished the year with some important organizational announcements to reflect our view of the growing value of technology in our business and in our industry with David Reese taking on the role of our Chief Technology Officer; and Jay Bradner, joining the company as our Head of Research and Development.

I want to just start our presentation by reminding you that our business is organized across these four pillars, our General Medicine franchise, our Oncology business, our Inflammation franchise, and now, as I said a moment ago, our Rare Disease business. And we expect that each of these will be growing through the end of the decade and beyond, and they’ll be growing as a result of the combination of marketed products that we already have in each of those categories as well as the things that are happening in our innovative pipeline. And as then, I hope you’re aware, our biosimilars business is integrated into these pillars. And that’s one of the things that has enabled us to deliver such an efficient set of results from our biosimilar commitment.

So if I start with General Medicine, where we have a number of big drugs directed against big diseases, I would highlight that Repatha performed very well during the course of 2023, and we expect to see that momentum continue in 2024 and beyond.

Repatha is, of course, the global leader in the therapies for PCSK9 inhibition and continues to be a tremendous source of value for patients who are at high risk of heart attack or stroke. And unfortunately, the unmet medical need for patients that are at high risk of cardiovascular disease remains very high, not just here in the United States but around the world. So more work to do, but Repatha is a great medicine to do that work.

In addition, our bone health franchise represented by EVENITY and Prolia continued to perform very well in ’23 also. And we expect that there will continue to be momentum for this franchise through, again, the end of the decade and beyond, driven by the fact that there are more than 200 million people worldwide who suffer from osteoporosis, the result of which is that there’s an osteoporotic fracture about every 3 seconds in the world. And we have 2 medicines in Prolia and EVENITY that can make a big difference for those patients who are at risk of fracture, and we’re committed to continuing to do what needs to be done to educate physicians and to make those medicines available for patients.

With respect to our pipeline in general medicine, there’s obviously a great deal of interest at the moment in the medicines that are advancing in this portion of our business, starting with obesity, where, of course, we have a medicine that we call MariTide [ph] which is in a Phase II trial, which rapidly completed enrollment last year. This is a medicine that we think has a differentiated profile and one that we will be excited to review results from in 2024. In addition, we have another molecule in Phase I, and I would note that we have about a half dozen or so other medicines in a preclinical state that we’re excited about in the obesity area.

Of course, in cardiovascular disease, we have ongoing work with respect to Repatha, where we have a primary prevention trial, a large primary prevention trial that’s running that we hope will, again, further underscore confidence and the importance and the recognition that when it comes to LDL, lower is better, and we expect those data will be meaningful when they’re available for that franchise.

And then in addition, as I hope you’re all by now aware, we have Olpasiran, which is a medicine that addresses patients who have high levels of Lp(a), which is a residual risk factor for atherosclerotic heart disease. This is an siRNA medicine that profoundly lowers LP(a) in patients. And we have a Phase III study of that medicine that rapidly enrolled patients last year.

Shifting to oncology. We have a broad oncology business. I think it’s sometimes lost on people that as many as 1 in 5 cancer patients receive at Amgen medicine. So this is a business that we have a deep track record in. It is one that we generated double-digit volume growth in throughout 2023.

BLINCYTO performed particularly well, and I’ll say more about that in a moment, as did Vectibix and Nplate and other medicines in that portfolio. KYPROLIS continues to grow as well, and the combination KYPROLIS, Nplate, XGEVA each performed at blockbuster levels in 2023.

There’s quite a bit of innovative progress in our oncology portfolio, and we’re very excited about what we see emerging there. We think 2024 will be another exciting and important year from us from a standpoint of clinical data. Tarlatamab is a medicine, I’ll say more about in a moment, but it’s one that I hope you will become very familiar with over the passage of time. This is under priority review now at FDA for advanced small cell lung cancer, a disease for which there’s tremendous need for incremental innovation.

BLINCYTO is our first T cell engaging therapy or bispecific T cell engaging therapy, which has demonstrated very attractive results for patients that have acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And based on data that we’ve generated in that franchise, that’s a therapy that’s moving into earlier, or moving into frontline treatment settings. And it’s a medicine for which we’re also rapidly developing subcutaneous formulations.

Xaluritamig is also a bispecific T cell engaging therapy. This addresses prostate cancer, and it’s a novel medicine addressing, in particular, an antigen known as STEAP1and again, this is a medicine that we’re very excited about. And I think that it’s fair to say the clinical community is very excited about it as well. And that’s reflected in the rapid rate of enrollment that we’ve experienced for that drug.

AMG 193 is also a novel medicine, very interesting approach to addressing the PRMT5 mutation, which is so common in many solid tumors. In fact, we think it’s as many as 15% of solid tumors that include important PRMT5 mutations that we can address with a product like AMG 193 in particular, for those that are also MTAP-null tumors. So we’re excited about what we’ve seen there. We reported early data to suggest that we’ve seen monotherapy responses now in 7 different tumor types.

LUMAKRAS, which, of course, is our KRAS G12C inhibitor, continues to perform well in the commercial setting, and we have a number of Phase III studies underway, continuing to explore the utilization of that drug in a variety of different combinations. And then I would finally remind you that in gastric cancer, we have an antibody-based program called bemarituzumab, which is also rapidly advancing through the clinic.

I said a moment ago that I wanted to spend a few moments on tarlatamab, and I hope this is a drug that you’ll become much more familiar with now that the FDA has designated a PDUFA date of June 12. Again, this is a medicine which in early clinical studies demonstrated a 40% response rate and impressively a 6-month survival rate of 73% for patients suffering from small cell lung cancer. And those of you who are familiar with that disease will recognize that those are stunning data, the likes of which haven’t really been seen in small cell lung cancer, where there’s been very little innovation over the past several decades and where the need for something to make a difference for those patients once their cancer has advanced is still very considerable. So we’re excited about what we see there. We’re initiating Phase III studies of the medicine in earlier stages of the disease. And we think that 2024 will be an important pivotal year for this franchise.

If I turn now to inflammation, the third of our four pillars. Inflammation, of course, is an area where Amgen has been a leader now for several decades based off the successful track record that we established with Enbrel. But this is a franchise where we continue to plow new ground notably with Tezspire, which is an innovative first and still only medicine of its kind, a medicine that is directed at an inflammatory – portion of the inflammatory pathway that we think is ripe for a number of different autoimmune disorders. It, of course, has been approved and is proving to be very successful for patients who struggle with uncontrolled severe asthma. But we have a number of other studies underway for that medicine, including COPD and others that we’re very excited about.

Otezla is, of course, an oral medicine, and it’s the only oral medicine that’s approved for mild to severe psoriasis patients. And this is a therapy that we expect to continue to invest heavily behind a therapy that we expect will continue to grow through patent exploration.

With respect to the future of our inflammation franchise, as I mentioned, we are investing heavily in TEZSPIRE based on our confidence in this novel mechanism of action and what we think this can do for patients that struggle with the effects of autoimmune disorders.

In addition to COPD, which I already mentioned. I would remind you that we have a Phase III study underway in eosinophilic esophagitis as well as a study in chronic rhinosinusitis. So more data coming for that franchise. And of course, rocatinlimab, which we think will be our first-in-class or the first-in-class approval of a medicine that addresses the pathway known as OX40.

We’ve rapidly enrolled patients in our Phase III program. In fact, now more than 2,000 patients enrolled in our Phase III program for that medicine and data are expected later this year. And then I would note as well that we expect to invest incrementally in studying that medicine in asthma.

We’ll shift now to rare diseases and to the idea that we see this now is our fourth pillar. The fourth pillar from which we expect to invest in innovation, but also to generate growth for our business through the decade and beyond. This is based on these four important medicines that we already have approved and on the market, which are performing well. Those include, obviously, TEPEZZA, KRYSTEXXA, UPLIZNA and TAVNEOS.

TEPEZZA is, of course, the first and only medicine approved for the treatment of thyroid eye disease. KRYSTEXXA is the first and only approved medicine for the treatment of severe and uncontrolled gout. UPLIZNA is the fastest-growing biologic addressing neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder. And of course, TAVNEOS addresses, again, a very serious autoimmune complication known as ANCA-associated vasculitis. So those four therapies, we think represent very attractive bulwarks for us as we build our rare disease presence in 2024 and beyond.

When we look at the pipeline in rare disease, again, we’re encouraged by what we see. We have a number of medicines that are being explored and existing medicines also being explored in new indications.

First, with respect to TEPEZZA, we’re rapidly enrolling our chronic and low clinical activity score study in Japan for thyroid eye disease. And we’re also rapidly advancing our programs in subcutaneous administration of that medicine.

We expect data this year for 2 studies in UPLIZNA [ph] the first in myasthenia gravis and the second in IgG4-related diseases. Dazodalibep is a very innovative program, which has enrolled – begun enrolling in the Phase III study for Sjogren’s disease or Sjogren syndrome. And so we’re also very intrigued based on the strong Phase II data that we saw for that program and consider that this could be the first important novel therapy for patients suffering from this disorder for some time.

And then finally, I would note that we have a medicine that also looks intriguing for us known as AMG 670, and it’s a medicine for which we have Phase II studies underway in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis as well as diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis. So we’re excited about what each of those medicines might represent for patients suffering from these rare diseases.

So if you look at just the things that are in prospects for 2024, you can see that it will be a busy year for us in each of these therapeutic pillars, a busy year in which we generate important clinical data and learn more and more about the prospect of our pipeline for these disorders. So these are the key milestones that we will be keeping track of during the course of the year and, of course, reporting on as appropriate when developments are available to share with you.

I want to just address our biosimilars business as well. Again, we have clearly established a global leadership position for Amgen and biosimilars. You’re familiar with our existing biosimilar brands, which, of course, again, are integrated into our oncology inflammation and rare disease business areas. And I would just note that in addition to the medicines that you see here, we’re advancing another wave of biosimilar opportunities. We expect our next three launches to be for biosimilars to STELARA, SOLIRIS and EYLEA and that we’ve announced publicly that we’re also advancing a medicine that we call ABP 206, which is a biosimilar to OPDIVO.

In addition, we have a further two programs that are underway, which we haven’t yet disclosed. But what I would observe is that we expect the market for biosimilars to be rapidly growing and to be large through the balance of the decade. In fact, we see and don’t disagree with the consultant reports that would say that there’s potential here for a high teen growth rate in the biosimilar market, driven by the fact that there are some $255 billion of innovator revenues going off patent during this period.

So biosimilars has been an attractive investment for us from the standpoint of the returns that we’re generating for shareholders. And I think it’s also been an area of attractive return for us when it comes to what we’re able to provide society, which is choice, choice and a reliable quality of biosimilars is what we’ve been able to build our track record off of, and that’s what we will continue to focus on in that franchise.

I said at the outset that we ended 2023 on what we thought was a high note by disclosing that we were going to reorganize some of our internal efforts in order to do our very best to bring our technology and biology expertise together at a moment in time where we think there’s a great opportunity to do that. So we are trying to position Amgen at the forefront of this exciting new opportunity of harnessing AI and generative AI for the benefit of the biotechnology business.

And so we’re investing heavily, as you would expect, in artificial intelligence across the company and advancing our investments in human data, which we’ve been talking to you about now for more than a decade and harnessing those tools of AI against that data.

And then finally, I would just observe that when you think about the period of time beyond 2030 or 2031, we’re very excited about what we think generative biology represents for us as well as the impact that we’re beginning to see from our multi-specific or what we call our inducible proximity platform efforts. So we’re excited not just about 2024, but by what we see through the end of the decade and frankly, even beyond the end of the decade.

We continue, of course, to recognize our responsibility to operate as a good corporate citizen, and we do that while continuing to deliver long-term growth and value for our shareholders. We do that as you are aware now, by driving volume for our innovative programs and for our biosimilar programs across a balance of therapeutic areas and across a global footprint. So each of our three regions is growing strongly, and we expect that to be true again through the end of the decade and into the next decade.

We believe that the in rare disease business unit that we’ve created or that we’re calling one of our four pillars will be an important additive source of growth for our business during that time frame. We have what is for us, I think, an unprecedentedly strong and broad pipeline, and that is a pipeline of late and mid-stage assets. And unfortunately, we continue to enjoy the support of a very motivated and focused staff who believes that we can make a difference for patients that are suffering from serious disease with our innovative medicines.

So with that, Chris, I’ll turn it over to you, and we can answer questions from the audience. I’ll simply end where I started by saying that we’re very enthusiastic about the outlook for the business. Thank you.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q – Chris Schott

Great. Well, I appreciate those comments. I might just start off with a bigger picture question. It’s been about 2 years since you provided 2030 targets for the business. Just when you kind of reflect on some of the pushes and pulls in the core business, some of the derisking you’ve had in the pipeline. Can you just talk about your confidence in those longer-term targets?

Robert Bradway

Yes, sure. As I’ve said, Chris now in a number of times, we’re very confident that we’re on track to meet or beat those objectives that we established a couple of years ago. And the – we feel strongly that the acquisition of the rare disease molecules is additive to that picture that we gave you. So we feel on track to meet or beat, and that’s a reflection of the performance that we see from the marketed products. The products that we said needed to be rapidly growing through the decade in order for us to deliver those objectives.

So for example, Repatha, we said Repatha needs to perform well. If we’re to deliver on our long-term objectives, you saw volume growth for Repatha approaching 40% through the course of the year. So Repatha is doing what we wanted it to do. The bone franchise, we said would have to perform. You can see that the bone franchise is performing. We talked about the geographic regions needing to grow. They are growing, they are growing rapidly. We talked about biosimilars needing to be an important contributor, and they are.

So I think the aspects of the in-line business have performed very well, assistant with what we needed to do in order to continue our track record of delivering what we say we are going to deliver. And then we said the pipeline would contribute, but that’s in the latter part of the decade. And since we made that comment, you can see there’s been considerable progress in our pipeline to underscore our confidence in the long-term growth.

But I would just – I would reiterate that the pipeline, frankly, is a source of growth beyond 2030, and that’s part of why we’re starting to feel more confident about our ability to carry the growth through into the next decade.

Chris Schott

Great. Great. Obviously, a little bit of focus on obesity these days. So maybe starting the conversation on MariTide. Just where you sit today, level of confidence in that lead asset, the pipeline you’re developing behind it and where you see kind of Amgen fitting into this landscape?

Robert Bradway

Well, we obviously believe that obesity is an area of tremendous unmet medical need in the world. I think that’s become more obvious over the course of the last couple of years. And we have been investing for some time on innovation that we felt could make a difference in this disease area. We have a medicine for which we completed it very rapidly – enrolled very rapidly a Phase II study last year to look at this disease. And we’re excited that we think we have an approach which is differentiated from our competitors.

Again, I would remind you that ours is based on an antibody rather backbone. I would remind you that in addition to agonizing GLP-1, we antagonize Gipper strategy that we settled on based on, excuse me, our human genetic data that led us to conclude that, that was the appropriate direction in which to try to perturb that pathway. And we think a combination of those two interventions has the potential not just to provide monthly dosing, but also potentially more effective and more rapid weight loss. And perhaps better maintenance and weight loss. But that’s what we all need to, excuse me, study and demonstrate in longer or larger clinical trials, and we’re rapidly advancing to do just that.

Chris Schott

Great. As I think about swing, all goes well with the Phase II, Phase III program for this drug, should we think of this as being a broad program where you’d explore a lot of different of these indications and things like maintenance dosing in parallel? Or is this going to be a staggered approach to developing it?

Robert Bradway

I think you should assume that if this medicine is the differentiated molecule that we think it is, that we will explore it in a very well established set of clinical trials to demonstrate the benefit of this, not just in weight loss, but also in the other diseases that are caused by an excess of fat in excess of adipose tissue in the body over a long period of time. So heart disease, kidney disease, other areas that you can imagine, might be relevant are areas where we will be very interested to generate clinical data and to study the benefit of our approach.

Chris Schott

Great. And as I think about Amgen as a potential third entrant into this market, on one hand, it’s an unprecedented opportunity. You have an asset that has differentiation. At the same time, we’ve got some pretty well entrenched competition. So how do you think about what is going to be needed to really be commercially successful entering this market over time?

Robert Bradway

Yes. I think what’s unusual for Amgen is normally we’re a first-in-class and very often only in class innovator. And in this case, we are following others into the field. However, we’re doing it with a differentiated molecule, which as I said a moment ago, we think will provide some differentiation for us in the marketplace.

So I think if we didn’t feel we were providing something different for patients. And if we didn’t think the difference that we were providing for patients was meaningful, we might have made a different decision. But based on everything that we’ve seen so far, we believe we have an approach, which is different from those that are already in the field. And we believe those differences have the potential to be clinically and commercially meaningful and on the back of that, we’re making the investment decisions that we are.

Chris Schott

Great. Last one on this. Just in terms of communication from Amgen this year, what should we anticipate in terms of updates from the company? I know you’ve got an interim, but it sounds like we might not hear anything until the full data, but just remind…

Robert Bradway

Yeah. I think what we’ve said and what my slide reflects, and there’s another slide in the appendix that provides a little bit more detail, but we will share the data as they become available, certainly for the full set of Phase II data, which we would expect to have at the end of the year in the appropriate way, we’ll share the way we normally do from our clinical pipeline. We recognize, obviously, there’s tremendous interest in this question in the investment community. So we’re going to be very thoughtful and share as appropriate when the data are available.

Chris Schott

Okay. Last one in obesity, AMG 786 and kind of the broader earlier stage of BC pipeline. What type of profile are you looking for with those assets? Are these more additive to incretins, are they alternatives? Just help us a little bit in term…

Robert Bradway

I think a couple of things. First, we think this will probably, over time, be seen as a more heterogeneous disease than it is today. And so we believe that there will be different approaches that over time are needed in order to enable people to achieve significant weight loss and to maintain that and to get the full clinical benefit that arises from being able to take off and keep off excess weight.

So we’re looking at alternative complementary approaches to trying to do that. You mentioned 786, which is one of our clinical assets. And then as I indicated in my remarks, we have another half dozen or so approaches that are rapidly advancing in preclinical phase that we would hope to begin getting clinical data for as well.

So I think what you can conclude from my remarks, Chris, is that we didn’t wake up one day and say, gosh, there’s a big market for obesity medicines, maybe we ought to jump in, but rather, this is an area that we’ve been exploring through time, an area that we’ve been trying to thoughtfully prosecute and that means thoughtfully generate differentiated and complementary ways to try and help address what is an enormous global burden and one that we think we can make a big difference in.

Chris Schott

Great. Sticking on CV Repatha exited the year with really nice momentum. Just talk a little bit about 2024 in terms of your priorities? Are we at a point with access that you’re pretty happy? Is there further opportunity there? Just help us think about that business?

Robert Bradway

I think Repatha is well covered now and well reimbursed in the U.S. in particular. I think the most important observation about heart disease is that it is still the biggest killer of people on the planet. And the biggest reason for that is there are too many people wandering around with their LDL levels too high. And we know that lowering LDL reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. We know that Repatha profoundly lowers LDL. And in doing so, helps prevent heart attacks and strokes and these other life-changing events.

So our responsibility is to do everything we can to educate prescribers and payers and patients about the benefit of lowering LDL with Repatha. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing it successfully. We’re leveraging into the primary care population now. We’ve generated an incremental 15,000 prescribers in that part of the business over the course of last year, and we’ll continue to generate interest with consumers and continue to educate physicians that this is the appropriate way now for us as a society to put a dent in heart disease.

After three decades of year-over-year reductions in heart disease, things moved against us as a nation and it’s time for us to do something about it. And we’re hoping that PCSK9 inhibition with Repatha will enable us to achieve that.

Chris Schott

One quick follow-up on this one. Is the product that as you’ve built access, there’s been some price erosion offsetting the volume. As we’ve got access now built out, does it reach a point where that price erosion component starts to moderate a little bit?

Robert Bradway

Obviously, we’re working hard to increase the number of prescribers and the number of patients that are benefiting from Repatha, and we think that will be reflected in the financial results. So we’re happy with where we are from a coverage standpoint now, and I think you’ll begin to see the benefit of that in the results that we report each quarter.

Chris Schott

Great. Tipping over to the Horizon assets for about 3 months since the deal closed. Can you just talk about where we are with integrating that business and your top priorities as you think about the portfolio?

Robert Bradway

Well, first I would say that the integration is going well. And I think that reflects the fact that there’s a good strategic fit between what they do and what we do. So we’re excited that we have 2,000 new colleagues at Amgen now who joined us from Horizon, and we’re excited about the medicines that they know so much about. I’m excited to try and learn what we can and share with them some of the things that we do and together reach more and more patients for not just the former Horizon products, but also for our other rare disease products and the rare disease products in our pipeline.

So, so far, so good. It’s 91 days or whatever it is now of time that’s passed since we closed the deal. But it feels like we’re off to a good strong start. TEPEZZA, which is the first and only medicine approved for thyroid eye disease has performed well in the last three quarters. Obviously, we’re not going to report a full quarter in January because we didn’t own the business for a full quarter, but I think we’ll see a third sequential quarter of – sorry, a third sequential quarter of growth for that franchise.

And the important thing there is we have a strong base now of clinical data from which to expand. We have a strong base internationally from which to expand and a strong base from an innovative standpoint to look at ongoing ways to meet the needs, the unmet needs of thyroid eye disease patients.

So we feel when it comes to the data that we generated, we’re in a good spot when it comes to international expansion, we’re making progress. We have a couple of international approvals already. We’re well on our way in Japan, and we’ve achieved orphan drug status in Japan, which will be helpful to patients there to gain access to this medicine. And as I said, I think from an ongoing – from the standpoint of ongoing innovation, I think we’re really – really good position to try and meet the needs of thyroid eye disease patients.

So the same is true with KRYSTEXXA. Again, we’re really excited about what that product does for patients that are suffering from this severe uncontrolled gout. And here, we’re talking about patients who have reached a point where their quality of life has deteriorated considerably patients considering things as severe as amputations of digits. And those are the kinds of patients who benefit very rapidly from KRYSTEXXA. And so we’re anxious to do our part to try and help make sure that we’re educating physicians and patients who are benefiting from that.

Again, UPLIZNA, as I mentioned, not just in NMOSD, but also potentially in two other disease areas where we’ll have data later this year to help inform the long-term course for that medicine. And then don’t lose sight of Tavneos. Tavneos is a medicine that nephrologists and rheumatologists recognize is a very important alternative for patients that suffer from that rare disease known as ANCA-associated vasculitis.

Chris Schott

If you highlighted in a few of the slides, but just thoughts on the Horizon pipeline. I know there’s a couple of assets in there. How interesting are those…

Robert Bradway

Well, I mean we wouldn’t have continued to invest as heavily as we are in those if we didn’t believe in them. So again, we have Phase III programs generating data this year for UPLIZNA. So we’re very excited to see what that medicine can do for patients with myasthenia gravis and potentially for patients with IgG4-related disease. And very interested, as I mentioned, in the Sjogren’s data that were generated last year, the Phase II data for Sjogren’s, which suggests that this medicine has the potential to have a real clinical benefit for those patients.

And as I mentioned, we also have a therapy in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, where the need is very high that also looks interesting. So we’ll be generating data. And when we have those data, we’ll have a better answer to your question, but I would say that we’re enthusiastic about what we’ve seen.

Chris Schott

Great. Just pivoting over to Otezla. Just talk a little bit about your outlook for this one. The market has been a competitive one. We had a new product, a lot of free drug last year. How are you thinking about the go forward for that product and kind of accelerating growth for that one?

Robert Bradway

Yes. Well, we – as I said, we’ll continue to invest in Otezla. We think that product is has a good setup to grow through patent exploration, so towards the end of the decade. And the setup for growth for Otezla is a combination of the years of experience that clinicians and patients have in recognizing that when it comes to mild-to-severe psoriasis, this is an oral therapy that has an established track record, and we expect to continue to do our part to educate payers and patients and physicians about that benefit.

So with respect to payers, we’ve got great coverage. We’re in a strong position with respect to the clinical profile. Again, I think the data speak for themselves. And the marketplace has been somewhat choppy with the introduction of free drug from competitors. But again, we’ll continue to promote and advance Otezla in our portfolio of inflammation drugs.

Chris Schott

Right. Just talking a little bit about margins for a second. The company has got an increasingly broad pipeline. You’ve got some nice growth drivers to invest behind. So just talk a little bit about how you balance, I guess, investing in these opportunities versus the margin profile of the company? I know you’ve been very clear of sustaining 50% margins over time.

But I’m just trying to think about how you think about getting the resources needed to fund a pipeline and especially from a very large obesity program potentially launch…

Robert Bradway

Well, our focus is on growing the business and our priorities are very clear. We allocate capital to innovation, internal and external innovation, and that’s what we’ll continue to do. So I think what you’re really getting at is if we have a number of large meaningful, important Phase III clinical trials underway at a moment in time, is that going to have an effect on margins. And the answer is sure, it may. But our objective will be to grow for the – sorry, to invest for the long-term growth in the business.

Now we’ve worked hard to establish our reputation for being the most efficient of the large biotech innovative companies with a large biopharma innovative companies. So we’re not going to surrender that lightly. We’ll be judicious in reviewing the investment opportunities for our portfolio. But I think it would be a mistake with assets like Olpasiran and assets like MariTide not to explore the full clinical utility of those therapies. And so we’ll be committed to doing that, and we’ll keep you posted if that looks like that have an effect on margins.

But I don’t – based on what I see now, I’m not worried that there’s going to be anything more than a couple of point swing one way or another in margin, and that’s consistent with what you’ve seen for us over the course of the last decade or so.

But the important underpinning for that at Amgen is a recognition that we owe it to our shareholders to be judicious with our use of capital and to try to be as efficient as we can and advancing innovative therapies for patients.

Chris Schott

Okay. And the last minute or two here, just maybe a close up on business development. So post Horizon, where are you guys most focused kind of what scope of activities can you look at? How much of a priority is this for you?

Robert Bradway

Well, business development has always been important at Amgen. It will continue to be. As I said, we allocate capital to innovation first and foremost, and that’s internal and external innovation. So we’ll continue to look. We’ve been very clear through time about what our objectives are from a strategy standpoint. So you should expect that we will continue to look for innovation that we think we can add value to across our – the four pillars of our business. So that’s what has guided us through time, and that’s what will guide us going forward.

Obviously, right now, we also recognize the responsibility to earn a return on the capital that we deployed on prior transactions. So we’ll be working hard to make sure that we’re earning an attractive return for shareholders from the capital we deployed last year to M&A. And that means working hard to deliver for the patients that can benefit from those medicines.

Chris Schott

Great. Well out of time, setting you ahead…

Robert Bradway

Thank you.