Amgen, Astellas Pharma and Amgen Astellas BioPharma K.K. announced that on April 1, 2020, Amgen will purchase the 49% of shares in Amgen Astellas BioPharma that are held by Astellas, based on the strategic alliance contract signed between Amgen and Astellas in 2013, making the company a wholly owned Amgen affiliate.

With this, Amgen Astellas BioPharma will change its name to Amgen K.K., and simultaneously relocate its Headquarters to Tokyo Midtown (9-7-1 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo). Steve Sugino will continue to serve as President and Representative Director of Amgen K.K.

Amgen Astellas BioPharma commenced business in October 2013, bringing together the strengths of Amgen, one of the world’s leading independent biotechnology companies, and Astellas, a company with deep knowledge of the medical needs in Japan and a wealth of experience in the development and marketing of pharmaceutical products, as well as a strong business foundation, to contribute to healthcare in Japan through the provision of innovative medicines created by Amgen.

Since then, Amgen Astellas BioPharma and Astellas have worked together to serve patients in Japan with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and bone disease, which are three areas of significant unmet medical needs, launching Repatha^® for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) or hypercholesterolemia for patients who have high cardiovascular event risk and do not adequately respond to HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, BLINCYTO^® for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and EVENITY^® for osteoporosis patients at high risk of fracture. Amgen K.K. and Astellas will continue to co-promote these three products and Astellas will remain responsible for distribution and sales of the products beyond 2020.

Amgen K.K. will carry forward Amgen’s global mission to serve patients by delivering breakthrough-science-based medicines, while also striving to bring Amgen’s full global pipeline of innovative medicines to patients in Japan who face unmet medical needs.