Boehringer Ingelheim to Purchase Amgen's Fremont (California) Facility

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. and INGELHEIM, Germany, Jan. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN) and Boehringer Ingelheim today announced they have signed an agreement under which Boehringer Ingelheim will acquire Amgen's rights in and substantially all assets at Amgen's Fremont California development and manufacturing facility.

The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close in March of this year.  The Amgen Fremont facility currently employs approximately 360 employees and is a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with pilot plant and process development labs.  

"With great enthusiasm, we look forward to welcoming the Amgen Fremont employees into the Boehringer Ingelheim family of companies," said Prof. Dr. Wolfram Carius, Boehringer Ingelheim Board of Managing Directors. "The technological expertise at Fremont and the state-of-the-art facility will enable us to further strengthen our global Contract Manufacturing Business including new biological entity process development and manufacturing efforts. We greatly value our relationship with Amgen and are enthusiastic about joining the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community and for the opportunity to better serve our current and future contract manufacturing customers."

Boehringer Ingelheim has been a contract manufacturer for Amgen for more than ten years.

"We are pleased to be able to build upon a successful contract manufacturing relationship with Boehringer Ingelheim," said Fabrizio Bonanni, Dr. Chem., Amgen executive vice president of Operations. "We look forward to continuing to work closely with them to support Amgen's delivery of safe and effective medicines to patients around the world."

Amgen obtained the Fremont facility through its 2006 acquisition of Abgenix. Amgen will continue to have a key presence in the San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology community through its South San Francisco facility, one of the company's key research centers.

About Amgen

Amgen discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers innovative human therapeutics. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen was one of the first companies to realize the new science's promise by bringing safe and effective medicines from lab, to manufacturing plant, to patient. Amgen therapeutics have changed the practice of medicine, helping millions of people around the world in the fight against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and other serious illnesses. With a deep and broad pipeline of potential new medicines, Amgen remains committed to advancing science to dramatically improve people's lives. To learn more about our pioneering science and our vital medicines, visit www.amgen.com.

About Boehringer Ingelheim

Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's leading companies for contract development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. All types of services from mammalian cell line or microbial strain development to final drug production and global market supply can be delivered within a one-stop-shop concept. Boehringer Ingelheim has brought 18 molecules to market and has many years of experience in multiple molecule classes such as monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, interferons, enzymes, fusion molecules, novel scaffold proteins and plasmid DNA. For more information please visit www.biopharma-cmo.com.

The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 142 affiliates in 50 countries and more than 41,500 employees. For over 125 years, the family-owned company has been committed to researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. In 2009, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of 12.7 billion euro while spending 21% of net sales in its largest business segment Prescription Medicines on research and development. For more information please visit www.boehringer-ingelheim.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve significant risks and uncertainties, including those discussed below and others that can be found in our Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2009, and in our periodic reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K.  Amgen is providing this information as of the date of this news release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.  

No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those we project.  The Company's results may be affected by our ability to successfully market both new and existing products domestically and internationally, clinical and regulatory developments (domestic or foreign) involving current and future products, sales growth of recently launched products, competition from other products (domestic or foreign) and difficulties or delays in manufacturing our products.  In addition, sales of our products are affected by reimbursement policies imposed by third-party payors, including governments, private insurance plans and managed care providers and may be affected by regulatory, clinical and guideline developments and domestic and international trends toward managed care and health care cost containment as well as U.S. legislation affecting pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement.  Government and others' regulations and reimbursement policies may affect the development, usage and pricing of our products.  Furthermore, our research, testing, pricing, marketing and other operations are subject to extensive regulation by domestic and foreign government regulatory authorities.  We or others could identify safety, side effects or manufacturing problems with our products after they are on the market.  Our business may be impacted by government investigations, litigation and product liability claims.  Further, while we routinely obtain patents for our products and technology, the protection offered by our patents and patent applications may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented by our competitors.  We depend on third parties for a significant portion of our manufacturing capacity for the supply of certain of our current and future products and limits on supply may constrain sales of certain of our current products and product candidate development.  In addition, we compete with other companies with respect to some of our marketed products as well as for the discovery and development of new products.  Discovery or identification of new product candidates cannot be guaranteed and movement from concept to product is uncertain; consequently, there can be no guarantee that any particular product candidate will be successful and become a commercial product.  Further, some raw materials, medical devices and component parts for our products are supplied by sole third-party suppliers.  

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081015/AMGENLOGO)

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110118/LA31949LOGO)

SOURCE Amgen