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For years,the biotechnology giant,Amgen,has weilded a near monopoly over its industrys most lucrative franchise,he anaemia drugs on which hundreds of thousands of American kidney and cancer patients and their insurers spend billions of dollars each year.But now, Amgens money machine is coming under attack.A host of companies are developing anaemia drugs to compete against Epogen and Aranesp,the blockbusters that will account fo nearly half of Amgens expected $12 billion in revenues this year.But Amgen,the worlds largest bitechnology company,will not give up its empire without a fight. Last month it filed a pre-emptive patent infringement suit against Roche, setting th stage for what Mark Schoenebaum,biotechnology analyst at BEAR Stearns,predicts will be "the mother of all biotech patent cases."He estimated that Amgens annual earnings growth over the next five years could be cut if Roche were to capture half the US market. |
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| Posted : 12/24/2005 |
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