Sponsored Insight
As a company, Amgen’s mission is to serve patients, and while innovating new medicines may be at the core of what they do every day, staff are always excited for new ways to serve not only patients, but also the communities where they live and work. And in 2022, that’s just what they did — from launching the company’s first-ever Mission Week dedicated to sharing patient stories, to serving more people with serious illnesses through entering strategic partnerships and building new research and manufacturing facilities.
Here’s a look back at five ways the people of Amgen came together in 2022 to help patients, families and communities live happier, healthier lives.
1. Putting patients’ stories center stage at Amgen’s Mission Week
Making and delivering medicines that help patients living with serious illnesses is the mission at the heart of Amgen. To help raise up the voices of those patients, Amgen hosted its first Mission Week event in 2022, at the company’s headquarters in Thousand Oaks, Calif. At panel discussions, patients like lung cancer survivor Deborah Carpenter shared their inspiring stories to live audiences, which were also streamed live to global audiences at Amgen sites around the world. The week-long event provided opportunities for face-to-face meetings between Amgen staff, patient advocates, and patients fighting some of society’s most challenging diseases.
2. Advancing innovative medicines for seriously ill patients through new acquisitions
When it comes to helping patients living with rare or hard-to-treat illnesses, scientific innovation offers the potential for new, life-changing therapies. As an innovative biotech company, Amgen welcomes innovations from all directions, including through the acquisition of innovative companies to bring resources to bear in the development and manufacture of promising new drugs so they reach the most patients possible. In 2022, the acquisition of Teneobio means Amgen will help advance powerful new technologies with potential to treat a wide range of important diseases, while the acquisition of ChemoCentryx means that Amgen can work to expand patient access to an important medicine for a rare inflammatory disease.
3. Serving more patients by growing Amgen’s U.S. research and manufacturing footprint
The need for cutting-edge innovation into new medicines for hard-to-treat illnesses has never been greater, and the patient demand for Amgen medicines in the U.S. has also grown significantly. That’s why, in 2022, Amgen not only opened a new, state-of-art Research & Development facility for its Amgen San Francisco site, but it also broke ground on a new drug substance facility in Holly Springs, NC that will help enable more medicines to reach more patients across the U.S., and that they are produced using sustainable processes.
4. Breaking down barriers and racial inequities in cancer care
Cancer can affect anyone, but people of color face worse outcomes than their white counterparts due to disparities in prevention, detection, treatment, and survival. To help address barriers in cancer care, Amgen teamed up with the American Cancer Society (ACS) and The Players’ Tribune to launch a series called Fight the Fight, in which athletes came together to share their experiences with cancer. For one installment, former linebacker and public speaker Emmanuel Acho sat down with Dr. Robert Winn, ACS board member and director of the VCU Massey Cancer Center, to discuss ways to solve disparities in cancer care.
5. Searching for solutions to social health challenges
“Our mission is to serve patients — not white patients or Black patients, not rich patients or poor patients, but all patients,” said Amgen CEO Bob Bradway in his opening remarks at Amgen’s 9th annual Health Equity Summit. As part of the company’s ongoing work to help achieve health equity for all people, Amgen convened key opinion leaders across therapeutic areas to discuss healthcare disparities and solutions. Panels highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic shined new light on health inequities, and participants encouraged collaboration across the healthcare field, including advocating for the potential of community health workers to help improve outcomes for patients with cardiovascular disease, asthma, and other chronic conditions.
To learn more about Amgen’s commitment to patients and the fight against serious illnesses, visit www.amgen.com.