Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) announced the launch of its Enbrel Mini with AutoTouch, a new auto injector device for Enbrel in the United States.
The Enbrel Mini single-dose prefilled cartridges, used with the AutoTouch reusable autoinjector device, provide an additional administration option for rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel. The Enbrel Mini with AutoTouch device was approved by the FDA in September.
Amgen’s shares have rallied 16.2% this year so far, better than the industry’s growth of 1.5%.
Sales of Amgen’s largest product Enbrel have been soft for quite some time now. Pricing pressure and stiff competition are hurting sales of Enbrel, one of the main drivers of Amgen’s revenues. Enbrel has recorded sales of $4.01 billion in 2017 so far, a decline of 7% year over year.
The RA market is extremity crowded, given the presence of treatments like AbbVie’s (NYSE:ABBV) Humira and Pfizer’s (NYSE:PFE) Xeljanz among others.
It remains to be seen if this new device for Enbrel can lead to some improvement in sales. However, on the Q3 conference call, Amgen had said that the declining trends in price and market share will continue in 2018.
In Europe, while biosimilar versions of Enbrel are available, in the United States, Sandoz, the generic arm of Novartis (NYSE:NVS) , has received FDA approval for its biosimilar version of Enbrel, Erelzi. Notably, Erelzi is yet to be launched in the United States.
Currently, Amgen has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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