Amgen 2004 Annual Report Download - page 16

An old proverb says that good luck has a way of visiting
those who work hardest. Certainly that’s true of Fu-Kuen Lin
and his discovery of the protein that became a medicine to
help millions.
In 1983 Lin, a research scientist, was the fi rst to isolate
the gene for erythropoietin and, subsequently, to produce
human erythropoietin in a form and quantity that made
its therapeutic use possible. Those discoveries led to the
development of Epoetin alfa, which in 1989 would reach
patients as EPOGEN® .EPOGEN® was Amgen’s fi rst
marketed product
— and the biotechnology industry’s
fi rst blockbuster medicine.
Amgen staffers recall that Lin and his assistant Chi-Hwei
Lin (no relation) spent nearly every waking hour at the lab.
Their task was staggering: finding a gene on a single fragment
of DNA among about 1.5 million fragments of the human
genome. It took two years of dogged effort — and many
unsuccessful approaches — before an ingenious method, using
multiple short strands of DNA as “probes” to fi sh for the
erythropoietin gene, fi nally worked.
At the time, “some felt that it took too long for a small
company to spend so much time on a project,” Lin remem-
bers. “But I enjoyed it. I never felt it was a pressure to me.”
He adds, “It’s better to work on a tough project than an easy
one. The easy one may be fun to do, but you can learn a
hundred times more on the tough one.”
The discovery of EPOGEN®
Fu-Kuen Lin with Chi-Hwei Lin today.
The moment Fu-Kuen Lin’s discovery and isolation of
the gene for erythropoietin and the subsequent development
of EPOGEN® were the pivotal events in Amgen’s transition
from an unproven start-up to a successful business. Beyond
these defi ning moments, the discoveries continue to unlock
new potential to treat diseases more effectively.
Amgen 2004 Annual Report page 14