Amgen 2004 Annual Report Download - page 17

The rise of manufacturing
Amgen’s new cell culture production manufacturing facility
near Boulder, Colorado, is scheduled to be operational in
2005. Pictured there, left to right, are Lisa Baker, senior
manager, Manufacturing; Jim Skrine, senior director, Quality;
Ellen Johnson, engineer; and Dennis Fenton, executive vice
president, Operations and corporate compliance offi cer.
The moment Since 1987, Amgen has been operating some of
the world’s largest roller bottle manufacturing facilities.
From the beginning, the company’s contributions to the
invention of a whole new fi eld have been driven by a strong
desire to meet the needs of patients. “Making proteins has always
been a core competency for Amgen,” says Dave Bengston, vice
president and general manager, Rhode Island Operations,
who joined Amgen back in 1983. “When the company began,
producing recombinant proteins for use in people was new
technology, so it’s not like there were many places to farm it
out. So we had to learn as we went along, taking the intent of
FDA regulations and applying them to the new technology.”
Amgen also made a decision early on to build a strong Process
Development group
— a decision that is still paying off today as
the company continues to innovate newer and more effi cient
ways to produce state-of-the-art therapies.
“It’s not rocket science — it’s actually more
complex.” So wrote Fortune magazine in
2004 about the manufacturing process for
ENBREL
®
(etanercept) at Amgen’s Rhode
Island facility. The observation applies
equally to the company’s manufacturing
operations in California, Colorado,
Washington and Puerto Rico. Only a
handful of companies worldwide have the
expertise to manufacture biologically
based medicines. Amgen is a leader among
that elite group, producing more than a
third of the world’s output of non-vaccine
and non-insulin protein therapeutics.
Amgen 2004 Annual Report page 15