Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Amgen To Acquire Kirin-Amgen Joint Venture For $780M

Thousand Oaks-based biotech giant a href="http://www.amgen.com">Amgen said on Monday that it has agreed to acquire its joint venture with Kirin, Kirin-Amgen, in a deal worth $780M. According to Amgen, the deal will make Kirin-Amgen a wholly owned subsidiary of Amgen. The JV was created in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture to fund global development of Amgen's EPOGEN, and later included the company's other pharmaceutical products. Amgen said the $780M will come directly from Kirin-Amgen itself. Amgen said that it had originally set up the joint venture when it was a "small, venture-backed start-up", and that the arrangement played a "pivotal role" in helping it grow from that startup to where it is today as one of the world's largest biotechnology companies.