Amgen aspires to be the best human therapeutics company. Achieving this goal starts with building the world's
premier R&D organization. Amgen's R&D Guiding Principles were inspired by this pursuit and designed to
reinforce our strategic priorities.
Focus on innovative medicines for unmet needs in patients with serious illnesses. While Amgen is
always pursuing new opportunities and adapting to challenges, we retain an enduring commitment to the same mission.
That mission is to enhance and extend the lives of patients facing serious illness.
Pursue targets that are validated in humans. We believe we are on the threshold of a revolution in
science in which population genetics will help to reveal new targets that clearly drive disease risk in humans. By
focusing on targets supported by human genetics or other strong human evidence, we aim to increase our clinical
success rates, reduce development timelines, and lower the cost of delivering new medicines to patients.
Maintain multiple drug modalities with a focus on biologics. Amgen pursues a "biology-first"
approach to drug discovery. We strive to select drug targets based on a deep understanding of disease biology, and
then choose the drug modality, or structural template, best suited to the target. We recognize our strength in
biologics and the higher clinical success rates for biologic medicines. We also maintain a broad toolkit of
modalities, including small molecules, in order to have the right tool for any target we pursue.
Focus on return on investment and operational efficiency. To maximize the value of Amgen's R&D
investment, we focus resources on programs that offer a large effect size and more likelihood of success. We
maximize the value of lower-priority assets by partnering and out-licensing. Amgen also strives to continually
identify operational efficiencies, such as reduced cycle times, leaner clinical trials, and centralized monitoring
of clinical study sites.
Harness external innovation. At Amgen, we pursue great innovation wherever we can find it, and
roughly half of our current late-stage pipeline comes from collaborations or acquisitions. We appreciate the synergy
between in-house and external innovation: To identify and add value to the best external inventions, we need to
maintain a high level of in-house scientific talent and capabilities.
Demonstrate the value of our medicines. Patients will not benefit from medicines they cannot
access, and increasingly, access depends on meeting evolving standards from regulators and payers. To meet these
expectations, we strive to deliver major therapeutic advances—medicines that offer compelling benefits for
patients and sound health economics for society.