Earnings Call Excerpt
Here’s the entire text of the prepared remarks from Amgen’s (ticker: AMGN) Q3 2005 conference call. The Q&A is in a separate article. We recognize that this transcript may contain inaccuracies - if you find any, please post a comment below and we’ll incorporate your corrections. And please note: this conference call transcript is a Seeking Alpha product, so feel free to link to it but reproduction is not permitted without the explicit permission of Seeking Alpha.
[Arvind Sood - Vice President Investor Relations]
Ok, thank you Crystal. Good afternoon everybody. I would like to be the first to welcome you to our Third Quarter 2005 Conference Call. Kevin Shearer, our Chairman and CEO will lead off the call followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Richard Nanula, who will give the additional details on our financial performance during the third quarter. I have also asked George Morrow, who is our EVP of global commercial operations to make some comments on the overall market and the current reimbursement environment. After George, Roger Perlmutter, our EVP of research and development will provide a pipeline update. Before you start, I would like to make the requisite cautionary statement. During our discussion today, we will make certain forward-looking statements and of course actual results could vary materially. So, with that, let me turn the call over to Kevin.
[Kevin Shearer - Chairman and CEO]
Thank you. Good afternoon. Our Third Quarter Financial Performance was strong and gives us real momentum as we look to 2006. This momentum was driven by strong sales of our key products including Aranesp, Neulasta, and Enbrel, the total product sales having appreciated 23% through the first 9 months of this year. George will provide some additional details on our products including the market dynamics in a few minutes. During the third quarter, we received 3 important regulatory approvals to support our commercial goals. The first 2 approvals allowed us to expand our manufacturing capacity to a second plant for Enbrel in Rhode Island and produce commercial bulk material for Neupogen and Neulasta in Puerto Rico. The third approval allows us to now promote Neulasta to a broader patient population at risk for febrile neutropenia. I have asked Roger to provide further background as to label expansion and give a full development update later on in the call. I am very pleased with the productivity of R&D organization. We expect to have additional announcements in the year to come on data relating to key pipeline products. Before I turn the call over to my colleagues, I would like to address several issues. Last week, Ortho Biotech, which is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson filed a lawsuit against Amgen alleging anti-trust violations relating to our sales of products to oncology clinics. We have reviewed their complaint and we believe that Ortho’s claim was unmerited. We intend to defend our position aggressively in court. I also wanted to comment on Amgen’s response to the recent natural disasters in the Gold Coast region. In response to Hurricaine Katrina and Hurricane Rita, we mobilized response plan for the patient’s reserve and for Amgen’s staff who were affected. The company and the Amgen Foundation are also contributing significant funds to relief effort with special focus on healthcare. The financial impacts on our business, however, has been negligible, and we will continue to work with suppliers, physicians, and customers to ensure an uninterrupted supply of Amgen’s medicines to patient’s in the Gold Coast region. Finally, my personal thanks to the over 15,000 Amgen staff members worldwide who work so hard to serve our patients and deliver strong performance quarter-after-quarter. Before I turn it over to my colleagues, I want to remind you that we will report our full year 2005 results on January 26, 2006, and on the same day host a meeting in New York for the investment community. In addition, to our full year results, we will also provide guidance for 2006 and give a commercial and R&D update. We will send additional details on the meeting over the next few weeks. Richard if you could now review our financial results.
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