INSTANT VIEW 2-Amgen bone drug data lifts shares

An experimental osteoporosis drug made by Amgen Inc reduced the risk of vertebral fractures in post-menopausal women by 68 percent compared with patients taking a placebo, lifting Amgen shares to a new high.

The data places the drug, known as denosumab, on a par with Reclast from Novartis AG, which reduced fractures by 70 percent and is the most effective drug on the market.

The data was presented at a meeting of the American Society of Bone Mineral Research in Montreal, and could help determine whether the drug is a multibillion dollar product.

Amgen shares hit a new high of $66.51 in morning trade, a level last reached in February 2007.

Story:

ERIC SCHMIDT, ANALYST, COWEN AND CO

"Everyone has been hoping this was a clean drug and it has emerged as that, with no (safety) imbalances whatsoever in terms of serious or general adverse events. And the efficacy data for denosumab, at face value, are as good as anything else" now on the market."

LES FUNTLEYDER, ANALYST, MILLER TABAK

"The (vertebral fracture) data is a little bit better than we expected."

"What we were interested in was the safety, and from what we can tell it looks pretty good. It's going to help Amgen quite a bit."

"The raw data looks good, and the market is reacting in a way that's consistent with good data. The stock has been up quite a bit. It just goes to show that now that we've seen most of details, investors are comfortable that initial response to preliminary data was not completely unfounded."

"What has concerned us is you could be looking at first ever primary care biologic drug. Most have been for cancer and tend to be quite expensive. Payers, HMOs, PBMs, may flinch if it's too expensive. They've got to price it right if they want to get good formulary positioning."

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot and Ransdell Pierson)

Keywords: AMGEN/ Chuck Mikolajczak cm

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