Amgen Faces More Safety Questions

Joe Saunders

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Amgen was a rising star in the pharmaceutical industry until serious questions arose about the safety of two of its biggest selling drugs which treat anemia in cancer and kidney-failure patients. A black-box warning placed March 9 on the labels of those and other anemia drugs urges doctors to use the smallest possible dose of the drugs. The two anemia drugs, Epogen and Aranesp make up almost half the sales for Amgen. According to the Wall St. Journal, "Amgen started selling Epogen in 1989. Like other biotechnology drugs, it is a protein created via the genetic engineering of living cells. That makes it different from the traditional chemical drugs such as Tylenol or Prozac sold by big pharmaceutical companies."