- Oil Next Week: What Traders Will Be Watching
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- Oil Next Week: What Traders Will Be Watching
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Fed Reform? Not So Fast.
MOST SHARED
- Seeking Innovation in Health Care
- Today's Market Action
- Driving Health Care Innovation
- Herbalife Vs. Hedge Funds
- Israel: Leader of Business Innovation
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great
- Low Interest Rate Investing
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
Text Size 
Shares of Amgen surged Monday after the company reported positive trial results for its osteoporosis drug candidate denosumab—which one analyst terms "a future blockbuster."
After the market closed Friday, Amgen reported late-stage clinical trial results that showed denosumab reduced the incidence of fractured vertebrae in post-menopausal women. Serious side effects were similar to a placebo injection—which, analysts said, will help eliminate concerns about the drug's safety.
The most common side effects were back and joint pain, hypertension and inflamed nasal passages.
Amgen [AMGN
Loading...
()
] stock climbed more than $7, or 13 percent, to almost $61 after the opening bell.
Rodman & Renshaw analyst Michael King said the results provide clearer data about the benefits and risks of denosumab. Because the side effects were similar to a placebo, he said, the drug's status as "a future blockbuster" is secure.
King raised his rating on Amgen stock to "market outperform" from "market perform," with a price target of $80 per share.
Jefferies analyst Adam Walsh also upgraded the Thousand Oaks, Calif., company to "buy" from "hold" and raised his target to $71 from $47. He estimated peak sales of $2 billion to $3 billion for denosumab—while May-Kin Ho of Goldman Sachs said sales could reach $5 billion if the drug is also approved to treat hormone-induced bone loss in cancer.
Ho said Amgen should report data from a cancer trial in late 2008 or early 2009, and she expects the drug to reach the market in 2010.
She raised her price target to $74 per share from $63.
Amgen is scheduled to release second-quarter results after the bell. Analysts on average expect earnings of $1.02 cents a share, on revenue of $3.58 billion, according to analyst estimates.
Print
Email
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spoke to Columbia students, and Buffett made the students a startling offer.
- For the chief of cable company Comcast, growth has been about making deals – generally very large deals.
- Some companies may start using insurance to shift carbon risk from their balance sheets to maybe... yours?
- The president and founder of Genesis Today wants to improve America’s health, and thinks Wal-Mart can help.
- Switzerland's privacy watchdog is taking legal action to force Google to make changes to its Street View service.
- A wealthy, distracted Texas driver crashed his million-dollar Bugatti Veyron sports car into a salt marsh, say police.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes