Presenting the Rathmann Award for Scientific Excellence, Amgen’s Highest Corporate Honor

George Rathmann, Amgen’s first CEO, is considered by many to be the “grandfather” of today’s biotech industry. One of the ways we honor his legacy is through the George B. Rathmann Award for Scientific Excellence, Amgen’s highest corporate honor. I recently had the pleasure of presenting the Rathmann Award for just the third time in our nearly 40-year history to scientist Cen Xu for her groundbreaking work on Amgen’s new migraine medicine. 

We launched this product in 2018, but Cen’s work dates back more than a dozen years, illustrating the challenges associated with moving an innovative medicine from the lab, through clinical trials and regulatory approval, and into the hands of patients.    

The World Health Organization ranks migraine as one of the world’s most debilitating illnesses given its prevalence and severity. Nonetheless, for many years, patients had to make do with medicines that were originally designed to treat something else – epilepsy and hypertension, for example. 

One of those patients is Kayleen, who shared her story with a gathering of Amgen leaders on the same day we presented Cen with the Rathmann Award. Kayleen and Cen, shown here, spent some time together and it was a very meaningful experience for them both – a patient whose quality of life was meaningfully disrupted by migraine and a researcher who helped provide a new treatment option.

Congratulations, Cen. Your work is an inspiration to all of us at Amgen!