Shares of biotech giant Amgen slide on disappointing sales

Shares of biotech giant Amgen Inc. slumped Wednesday as investors reacted to weaker-than-expected first-quarter sales.

Shares of the Thousand Oaks company dropped $6.41, or nearly 6%, to $106.35 in trading Wednesday. The company’s stock had posted impressive gains until this week, up 65% in the last year.

Amgen reported first-quarter results after the markets closed Tuesday. Its net income rose 21% to $1.4 billion, or $1.88 a share, from $1.2 billion, or $1.48 a share, a year earlier.

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But analysts and investors focused much of their attention on Amgen’s revenue growth, which came in lower than Wall Street’s expectations.

For the quarter ended March 31, revenue increased 5% to $4.2 billion. Revenue from one of Amgen’s top-selling drugs, Enbrel, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, climbed 11% to $1 billion in the quarter.

The company is looking to develop a host of other new drugs and capitalize on advances in genetic research to identify promising therapies.

Robert Bradway, Amgen’s chairman and chief executive, said “our key pipeline projects are progressing well and we are looking forward to clinical results from ongoing trials.”

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