Research and Development Strategy

To support Amgen's drive to serve patients, the R&D organization aims to discover, develop and deliver life changing medicines to patients everywhere. To accomplish this mission, we need to take full advantage of opportunities arising from rapid scientific progress and new technologies. Biotechnology and the data sciences are advancing at blinding speed, opening up immense new possibilities. At the same time, competition within the industry is intensifying, and there are more and steeper barriers to medical access.

To keep pace with these rapidly changing opportunities and challenges, Amgen has adopted a dynamic R&D strategy. It is designed to:

Focus on large effect sizes in serious illnesses with unmet need.
Look to the biology first to understand disease and design new potential therapies.
Bring together our leading internal innovation with world-class external innovation.

With the union of technology and biotechnology, we are at a hinge moment in drug discovery and development. Amgen's scientific success is rooted in unique capabilities that include:

Human data: To advance precision medicine and better understand human diversity and disease using genomics, omics and other data.
Multispecifics and other modalities: To drug the undruggable by engaging one or more targets at once.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and data science: To design better biologics more quickly and effectively.
Clinical trial innovation: To speed up and improve trials using the latest technologies.

By building on Amgen's long-standing strengths in science and biotechnology, and with the addition of the latest in technology, we have a clear purpose: For every patient – a solution.

— David M. Reese, Executive Vice President, Research and Development

Read the 2022 R&D Annual Review Download Report

OUR SCIENCE

Human Data

Insights from human data will help us improve understanding of disease predictions, identify new targets, as well as find the right patient populations for the next generation of first-in-class therapeutics.

AI & Data Science

Investing in the power of artificial intelligence (AI), data science and other technologies to create the next generation of medicines that will bring the most value to patients.

Multispecifics & Other Modalities

Multispecific medicines have the potential to radically alter our concept of how drugs work and pave the way for new therapies.

Clinical Trial Innovation

We are innovating clinical trials in ways that are improving our understanding of the natural course of disease as well as our ability to predict patient responses to the new medicines in development.

Our Vision

A world where science defeats all disease.

Our Priorities

Improve our success rates.

Focus our people and investments more intensely on the most promising technologies and activities most likely to lead to new therapies.

Reduce cycle times.

The industry's standard timeline of 12 to 14 years from project start to drug approval is not viable. Amgen has already reduced its drug development timelines, but there is still ample room for improvements.

Broaden access and use.

Gaining regulatory approval for new therapies is only half the battle. In the end, only one metric matters: Are the patients who need Amgen medicines actually getting them?

Our Strategic Imperatives

Make focused investment in innovative research platforms

Focus research investments in cardiovascular and metabolic, inflammation and cancer therapeutic areas. Rapidly expand the scale and diversity of our human omics platforms to move towards a precision medicine approach to drug discovery and development.

Expand our human data resources to include proteomics, transcriptomics and clinical/real world data. This will generate deeper insights into disease biology, find new drug targets and speed up clinical trials.

Use our molecular engineering strength combined with the power of AI/machine learning to expand on the success of current drug platforms, including multispecifics such as BiTE^® molecules, and pioneer novel modalities to address targets now seen as undruggable.

Innovate in Clinical Development

Increase the speed and efficiency of clinical trials and improve success rates through greater use of modelling and simulation, adaptive designs and real-world evidence.

Increase recruitment of patients who will potentially benefit most from new therapies, design smaller and faster studies with larger response rates by using human data, including genetics and omics.

Address access and use at all stages of drug development

Engage with healthcare professionals, regulators and payors to enable broader and faster access to therapies.

Accelerate bringing molecules from the lab, through the clinic, to approval and to patients around the world because of the immense interconnected R&D ecosystem so the patients who need our medicines most are getting them as fast as possible.

Support our people

Our past and future success relies on our people – they form the foundation for all that we do. We will continue to build an R&D culture that supports, develops and nurtures a diverse talent base energized by the rapid scientific progress and new technology we are using to push the boundaries of science. Our teams are vested in a collective accountability for our success.