[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


       SALUTE TO AMGEN AND TO THE AMERICAN BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

                                 ______


                          HON. ELTON GALLEGLY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 8, 1995
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute the American 
biotechnology industry, which continues to dominate the world market in 
producing breakthrough medicines based on cellular and molecular 
biology--bringing relief and cures to millions of patients around the 
world.
  Although other nations, notably Germany, Great Britain and Japan have 
renewed their efforts to narrow the biotech gap, America's leadership 
in this vital field continues to be overwhelming.
  Although it has existed for little more than a decade, the 
biotechnology industry has already made tremendous advances in science 
and research. Today, there are more than 1,000 biotech companies in the 
United States, most in the research stage of their development.
  Many of these companies are located in my home state of California 
and one, Amgen Inc. of Thousand Oaks, is located in an area that was 
formerly part of my congressional district.
  It is through Amgen that I first became aware of this burgeoning 
industry and that I continue to stay apprised of its development and 
progress. We in California are especially proud of this industry, which 
brings so much hope and promise to the economy of our state and nation. 
In fact, in the face of military and corporate cutbacks that have truly 
challenged the state of California and its residents, biotech 
represents one of the few industries to actually grow over the past 
decade.
  Mr. Speaker, in a recent column in the Los Angeles Times, An American 
Upbringing for Promising Industry, February 12, 1995, James Flanigan 
detailed the dynamics of the biotechnology industry and explained some 
of the reasons why it holds so much potential for real gains in 
medicine and is expected to have such a positive influence on the 
nation's economic growth.
  In his article, Mr. Flanigan singled out Amgen as an example of the 
awesome medical potential of biotechnology, both in the immediate and 
long-term future.
  As someone who is acutely aware of the progress Amgen has made in 
this truly progressive field, I find this recognition quite 
appropriate. Just this past December, Vice President Al Gore presented 
Amgen with a Presidential National Medal of Technology for its 
pioneering role in this new industry and its success in bringing 
remarkable medicines to patients around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to include Mr. Flanigan's article in the 
Record to share with you and my colleagues information about an 
industry that will surely play a larger role in all of our lives in the 
coming years.
              [From the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 1995]

            An American Upbringing for a Promising Industry

                          (By James Flanigan)

       With professional investors pumping billions of dollars 
     into Amgen Inc. stock last week on rumors--later denied--of a 
     takeover that would have cost at least $12 billion, ordinary 
     folks must wonder what connection there could be between 
     mega-deal speculation and lower prices for prescription drugs 
     and medical treatments.
       But there is a connection, just as there is a more obvious 
     link to fresh investor interest in biotechnology, an industry 
     scarcely 20 years old that speaks volumes about U.S. methods 
     of financing discoveries and innovations.
       In fact, dozens of biotech companies are starting up these 
     days, thanks to a new research technology.
       And in a larger context, though there may be no single cure 
     for cancer, the outlook for Amgen and the biotech industry 
     says remedies to alleviate cancer symptoms and those of AIDS. 
     Alzheimer's and other afflictions are in the works.
       Amgen's stock shot up 21% in two days last week, from under 
     $63 a share to more than $76, on rumors that Bristol-Myers 
     Squibb, maker of Bufferin and other such products as well as 
     prescription medicines, would offer $90 a share for Amgen's 
     stock.
       Amgen's price fell back when Bristol denied the rumor--it 
     closed at $68.44 on Friday. But speculation about buyouts is 
     sure to continue in an atmosphere in which Glaxo Holdings 
     recently paid $500 million for Affymax, a biotech company, 
     and is offering $14 billion for Wellcome, which makes a 
     leading AIDS treatment.
       The big companies' intent is to acquire research 
     capabilities and the rights to promising drugs at a time when 
     hard bargaining by corporate benefit managers are driving 
     down drug prices and big company laboratories are becoming 
     expensive luxuries.
       ``The big companies are well equipped to handle worldwide 
     marketing and clinical trials for the Food and Drug 
     Administration,'' says Viren Mehta, managing partner of Mehta 
     & Isaly, an investment firm specializing in health issues. 
     ``But their research laboratories have been less productive 
     of successful new drugs.''
       Thus Amgen is particularly attractive because it has two of 
     the most successful new compounds: Epogen, which stimulates 
     production of red blood cells to alleviate anemia in kidney 
     patients on dialysis, and Neupogen, which
      stimulates white blood cell production to guard against 
     infections in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
       On growth and development of those two products alone, 
     Amgen's earnings could rise 13% a year for the next five 
     years, says Eric Hecht, a physician and a security analyst 
     for Morgan Stanley.
       The drugs are economically effective because they reduce 
     the need for costly blood transfusions and medically 
     effective because they bolster the immune systems of 
     patients, thus reducing risk of often fatal infections.
       And they are called biogenetic because they use synthesized 
     genes to stimulate the body's own curative processes--blood 
     cell production from the bone narrow, for example.
       Biotechnology, though a young industry, already contains 
     some 700 companies, most of them in the United States, and 
     already has gone through several cycles of exaggerated 
     hopes--and sky-high stock prices--followed by returns to 
     realistic expectations.
       Born in the wake of President Richard Nixon's War on 
     Cancer, biotech's first aim was to find a single cure, a 
     ``silver bullet'' to cure the dread disease. But through the 
     years, a growing realization that cancer and AIDS and 
     afflictions of the brain such as Alzheimer's are complex, 
     changeable and unpredictable has humbled drug companies and 
     investors.
       Now efforts are undertaken one step at a time. For example, 
     Amgen, in partnership with a small company named Regeneron, 
     is in clinical trials with a genetic compound intended to 
     slow the degenerative processes of Lou Gehrig's disease. 
     Hopes of finding compounds to restore lost functions due to 
     sclerosis or stroke are for the future.
       The very fact that biotech research is at the frontier of 
     science has made it difficult for big company laboratories 
     with corporate budgets and procedures. So biotech has grown 
     as a decentralized industry, encouraging university and 
     medical center researchers to join business managers in 
     entrepreneurial companies.
       That's why major biotech centers are clustered near 
     university complexes--in the San Francisco Bay Area and San 
     Diego, in Cambridge and Boston, Mass., Princeton, N.J., and 
     the Texas Medical Center in Houston.
       Venture capital firms offer initial financing in such 
     places and, when markets are receptive, bring companies 
     public with new stock. But it's a tough field to predict. 
     Even the renowned scientist Jonas Salk's company, Immune 
     Response Corp., has been plagued by worsening losses and a 
     sinking stock price.
       Yet new companies are being formed at a furious pace in 
     California and elsewhere. The reason is a technological 
     mouthful called combinatorial chemistry. It uses the 
     techniques of semiconductor manufacturing and super-computing 
     to screen thousands of molecules for potential sources of new 
     genetic drugs.
       The effects could be dramatic. ``Combinatorial chemistry 
     will make it much quicker and cheaper to identify attractive 
     new drugs,'' writes James McCamant, editor of Berkeley's 
     Medical Technology Stock Letter. ``Over the next 10 years it 
     will change the nature of the pharmaceutical industry.''
       Drug companies are aware of that: Marion Merrell Dow has 
     already acquired Selectide and Glaxo has bought Affymax, two 
     pioneers in combinatorial chemistry.
       There will be many more buy-outs and start-ups to come in 
     the normal ferment of a new industry. The promise is that 
     biotechnology will bring down the costs of prescription drugs 
     and medical treatments as it brings entrepreneurs and 
     investors opportunities in small companies as well as large 
     ones like Amgen.
       A good example of the ability of U.S. industry, academia 
     and government to adapt to scientific discovery and changing 
     circumstances, biotech is a field to watch.
     

                          ____________________