Eprex, Roche's NeoRecormon and Amgen's Epogen are all versions of the same hormone, erythropoietin, or EPO.
Merck will file a copycat Epogen with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012.
Then, in 1983, it discovered a protein that eventually became Epogen, a treatment for anemia.
The report suggests changing the way Medicare pays for Epogen, Amgen's multibillion-dollar anti-anemia drug.
For some dialysis-related drugs, including Epogen, Medicare also pays each time the drug is administered.
Last fall, Amgen introduced a new, longer-lasting version of Epogen called Aranesp, or darbepoetin.
That's because Amgen could only sell Epogen in one market: for kidney dialysis in the United States.
That will create a windfall for Amgen to make up for the loss of revenue from Epogen.
In the U.S., the patents for its blockbuster anti-anemia drug, Epogen, terminate in six or seven years.
One version, Epogen, is sold by biotech Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ).
And besides Epogen and Neupogen, Amgen has only one other drug on the market: Hepatitis C treatment Infergen.
While Harpur's patient doesn't run any such risk, the missing Epogen does impose other costs on the system.
Epogen's main use is to treat anemia in patients with kidney failure, also known as end-stage renal disease.
Stark believes that Medicare policy has encouraged overprescribing of Epogen and has been a waste of taxpayer money.
Joshua Ofman is a vice president at Amgen, which makes two of the anemia drugs - Aranesp and Epogen.
Amgen used the gene to produce the protein and then sold it as a drug called Epogen--biotech's first blockbuster.
That's because Amgen also announced it expects sales growth of Epogen and another drug, Neupogen, to fall below expectations.
The key question is whether the drugs in Amgen's pipeline can make up for slacking flagships Epogen and Neupogen.
This discovery led to Amgen's anemia drug Epogen, and trials began in 1985.
Such patients receive Epogen during dialysis treatments, which are usually covered by Medicare.
Between 1991 and 2003 the average Epogen dose quadrupled, according to a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs.
The spread that dialysis centers made on Epogen accounted for roughly 25% of their profits, according to a Morgan Stanley report.
Shares in biotech Affymax rose 8% Tuesday because that biotech is developing an Epogen replacement that shouldn't infringe on any Amgen patents.
One of her patients needs 5, 000 units of Epogen, a bone-marrow stimulant and one of the costliest drugs in the hospital formulary.
Indeed, dialysis centers get 25% of their profits from the Medicare reimbursements they receive on Epogen, according to a Morgan Stanley report.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the average dose of Epogen quadrupled between 1991 and 2003.
Copies of top-selling medicines like Amgen 's Epogen, for anemia, or the clot-buster Lovenox, made by Sanofi-Aventis, could be the new me-too drugs.
For instance, Epogen, made by Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ), was derived from a single gene sequence.
But one of GlycoFi's proofs of concept was a scientific paper showing its method could be used to create a copy of Amgen's Epogen.
Amgen does face a court battle against upstart Transkaryotic Therapies (nyse: TKTX - news - people) for the rights to Epogen.
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