Looking Back With Gratitude – And Forward With Optimism

As 2022 draws to a close, it’s a great time to look back on the terrific work that’s been done by my 安进 colleagues around the world this year to serve patients – and to look forward to how we’ll make an even bigger impact in the future.?Here are five things that fill me with gratitude and optimism.

• We are bringing our medicines to more patients – We reached more than 11 million patients globally in 2022 – patients with cancer, heart disease, inflammatory disease, and other serious illnesses.?At a time of supply chain challenges in our industry and many others, Amgen continued our tradition of serving “every patient, every time.”?To help meet anticipated future demand for our medicines, we broke ground on two new manufacturing facilities in 2022 – one in Ohio , the other in North Carolina .?We’re also serving more patients outside the U.S., especially in the in the Asia-Pacific region, where we achieved our goal of reaching 2.5 million patients this year.?Many of these patients live in China, where Amgen recently celebrated its 10th anniversary .????
• We are advancing our pipeline – At a time when society needs more innovation, Amgen is bringing it.?We’ve invested more than $3 billion in research and development through the first nine months of this year, with three quarters of the molecules in our pipeline representing potential first-in-class medicines targeting diseases for which there remains a huge need for new and better treatments.?One of these molecules – which advanced from Phase 1 to Phase 2 development during the year – targets small cell lung cancer.?This is one of the most devastating and aggressive solid-tumor cancers and the standard of care hasn’t meaningfully advanced in decades.?We hope to change that.?
• We are pushing the boundaries of science – The rapid convergence of "biotech" and "tech" is fundamentally redefining how we go about our work, especially in the area of early research.?To give one example, we are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to potentially reduce the time it takes to discover and develop innovative biologic medicines from years to months – good news for patients in desperate need for new treatments.
• We are building a more diverse, inclusive culture – We live in turbulent times and we know that people are increasingly looking to their employers for support.?One of the ways we are providing that support at Amgen is through our many employee resource groups (ERGs).?This year, we’ve experienced a 40% increase in the number of staff around the world who participate in one or more ERGs, which support our colleagues who are Black, women, veterans, young professionals, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and indigenous people, to name just a few. I’m grateful to my many colleagues who have devoted time and effort to strengthening our ERGs, and I remain convinced that our differences make for better science.?
• We are operating responsibly – Our core business of improving human health, in and of itself, contributes meaningfully to the greater good. But society confronts many challenges these days, and we are doing our part to address them.?We know, for example, that access to high-quality science education varies widely based on a student’s socioeconomic circumstances.?That’s why the Amgen Foundation this year committed an additional $30 million to support LabXchange , a free virtual science education platform developed in partnership with Harvard that has already reached 25?million students around the world since its launch in 2020.

Let me again thank my Amgen colleagues for a great year in which they delivered for patients, often under challenging circumstances.?They are the reason why I believe that the best days for our company are yet to come.?

We’ve entered an extraordinary new era in biotechnology, when both the need for innovation and our ability to provide it are increasing exponentially.?That’s good news for Amgen – and even better news for the patients we serve.