Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), which was founded in 1980, is one of the world's leading biotechnology companies. Interestingly, the biotech industry has matured over the years and some of the companies generate stable cash flows, not unlike some of the larger pharmaceutical companies. Amgen is one of these. Competitive issues, largely surrounding the biosimilar debate, have put pressure on Amgen's stock. Post-Brexit market volatility provided us an opportunity to acquire shares.
Amgen has a diversified product portfolio across six therapeutic areas: oncology/hematology, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, bone health, nephrology and neuroscience. Its key products are Enbrel for long-term inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis; Epogen and Aranesp for anemia; Neupogen and Neulasta for treating neutropenia (a lack of certain white blood cells caused by cancer, bone marrow transplant, or after chemotherapy). Newer drugs include Repatha, which targets high cholesterol for the roughly 20% of the population who are intolerant of statins (the typical first line treatment), and Kyprolis for multiple myeloma, an incurable bone cancer. Its pipeline consists of 31
preclinical and clinical targets, 12 of which are in the later stages. Amgen also has a pipeline of 9 biosimilars, of which 3 are in late stage and for which the worldwide sales of the originator drugs totaled approximately $54 billion in 2015.
The company generated $9 billion in operating cash flow in 2015, up from $5.1 billion in 2011. The company has used its excess cash flow to fund growth as well as return cash to shareholders via both share buybacks and dividends. It expects to return 60% of adjusted net income to shareholders by 2018.
Amgen has longer-term opportunities for margin improvement from synergies and cost controls. The company initiated a large-scale "transformation" program in 2013 to focus on efficient allocation of resources. The plan included an approximately 23% reduction in its facilities footprint and a 20% reduction in headcount by the end of 2015, with a goal of generating $1.5 billion of annual savings and a 15-point increase in adjusted operating margin by 2018. So far, the company's adjusted operating margin has increased from 38% in 2013 to 48% in 2015 and 55% in 1Q16. Management believes it is on a path to achieve 52-54% by 2018. In addition, the company's new next-generation bio-manufacturing facility is on track. The facility is expected to increase bulk production capabilities at a quarter of capital costs, 1/3 of operating costs and 2x speed vs. conventional facilities, resulting in an estimated cost reduction of 60%+ per gram of protein.
Competitive threats confront any company and even more so for biotech and pharma companies as their products face patent expirations. Biosimilar products are newer to the marketplace and the regulatory pathway is still evolving, with questions of interchangeability with the branded drug still progressing. Biologics are scientifically more challenging than small molecule generic development, more costly to develop and require high-quality complex manufacturing. Price discounting to date has been substantially less than small molecule generics, but may vary over the longer-term. As such, we look to acquire shares at a reasonable estimate of the company's base business without giving much credit to the pipeline. We believe this provides downside protection for the competitive threats while providing opportunity for upside given the growing pipeline. We took advantage of volatility during the quarter to acquire shares of Amgen common at around a 25% discount to our estimate of NAV.
From Third Avenue Value Fund's third quarter 2016 letter.
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