Less than a decade since it secured its first FDA approval for a biosimilar, Amgen’s portfolio of the copycat drugs is growing and making strong contributions to the company’s top line.
In 2024, when Amgen generated $33.4 billion in revenue, more than $2.2 billion came from sales of its biosimilars. It was a 16% increase from Amgen’s biosimilar sales in 2023 and the company appears ready to top that figure this year.
Less than three months ago, Amgen became the first company in the U.S. to launch a biosimilar version of Regeneron and Bayer’s eye disease blockbuster Eylea. Then last month, Amgen brought to the market a knockoff of Johnson & Johnson immunology powerhouse Stelara.
In the last nine weeks of last year, Amgen’s Eylea biosimilar, Pavblu, generated $31 million in sales.
“The current feedback from retina specialists that we’ve been talking to is very enthusiastic, very positive,” Murdo Gordon, Amgen’s global commercial operations chief, said Tuesday during a quarterly conference call. “They are pleased that Amgen is bringing yet another high-quality biosimilar in a very easy-to-use prefilled syringe.”
Reiterating the words of Amgen CEO Robert Bradway, Gordon added the importance the company places on being in the “first wave” when it launches a biosimilar, as was the case with Pavblu and its Stelara copycat Wezlana.
“That represents an opportunity that we will capitalize on,” Gordon said.
Being first was beneficial for Amgen with its version of AbbVie’s mega-blockbuster Humira. Amjevita was first to the market when it launched in Europe in 2018 and in the U.S., where it debuted in January of 2023.
Amjevita sales reached $763 million last year, a 22% bump from 2023. Meanwhile, Amgen’s sales of Mvasi—a biosimilar version of Roche’s Avastin—are finally starting to fade, falling 9% last year to $727 million.
Soon to fill the void will be Bkemv, which is Amgen’s copycat of AstraZeneca’s Soliris. It is set to launch in the second quarter of this year, according to an Amgen investor presentation (PDF). Amgen also expects in the second quarter to read out a phase 3 trial of its biosimilar edition of Bristol Myers Squibb’s cancer immunotherapy Opdivo.
In the works further down the pipeline are biosimilar versions of Merck’s cancer superstar Keytruda and Roche’s multiple sclerosis blockbuster Ocrevus.
Amgen’s chief financial officer Peter Griffith added that the company expects biosimilar sales to reach $4 billion by the end of the decade.
“We’ve built what we think, obviously, is an industry-leading biosimilar franchise,” Griffith said. “We operate very efficiently. We leverage the broader Amgen footprint, including manufacturing and operations.”