Amgen’s (AMGN) closely watched cardiovascular drug candidate lost a major rival on Sept. 4, when Novartis (NVS) announced that its pelacarsen trial failed to reduce heart attacks and strokes in high-risk patients.
The surprising part is that the news triggered a sell-off among AMGN shareholders instead of a rally.
The stock dropped 9.1% on Sept. 8 as Wall Street began questioning whether the whole class of Lp(a)-lowering drugs would actually work.
Morgan Stanley now says the reaction may have been too harsh. The bank’s biopharma team met privately with Amgen’s management at its 2026 Global Healthcare Conference on Sept. 15, and the discussion gave the team a clearer view on the setback.
According to a Morgan Stanley research note shared with me, Amgen’s own drug, olpasiran, has a very different profile from Novartis’s pelacarsen, and its Phase 3 trial targets a higher-risk patient group. That changes what a positive result would require and how large the eventual market could be.
The meeting also touched on MariTide, dazodalibep, and the risks tied to Amgen’s aging legacy drugs.
What sets Amgen’s olpasiran apart from Novartis’ failed drug
Lipoprotein(a), often called Lp(a), is a form of cholesterol that increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes. About one in five people worldwide have high Lp(a) levels, and unlike regular cholesterol, it does not respond to diet or exercise.
No approved therapy currently targets Lp(a) directly, which is why the class attracted heavy investment from Novartis, Amgen, and Eli Lilly (LLY).
Novartis’ pelacarsen lowered Lp(a) by roughly 70% to 80% in its Phase 3 Lp(a)HORIZON trial, but that reduction was not enough to reduce cardiovascular events compared with placebo.
Amgen’s olpasiran cuts Lp(a) by 95% to 99% in earlier studies, according to Morgan Stanley’s meeting notes, a much deeper reduction that Amgen’s R&D chief Jay Bradner argues could translate into real cardiovascular benefits.
The trial design is also different. Amgen’s Phase 3 OCEAN(a) study only enrolls patients with Lp(a) levels of at least 200 nmol/L, versus 150 for the Novartis trial. Its main measure of success is by how well it prevents heart attack, cardiovascular death, and urgent revascularization.
It also excludes stroke because Amgen’s own epidemiology work found stroke was not strongly linked to Lp(a) risk.
How Amgen actually makes money right now
Amgen is one of the world’s largest biotech companies, with a market value of roughly $208 billion. It develops and manufactures prescription drugs for cardiovascular disease, cancer, inflammation, obesity, and other rare diseases.
Its top-selling products include Repatha for high cholesterol, Prolia for osteoporosis, Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis, and Tepezza for thyroid eye disease. The company sells its medicines through pharmaceutical wholesalers, hospitals, and specialty distributors.
In the second quarter of 2026, Amgen posted $10.05 billion in revenue, up 9.5% year over year, and adjusted earnings per share of $6.29 that beat expectations by about 12%. Repatha alone generated $953 million in that quarter and grew 37% from a year earlier, becoming the biggest driver of the beat in expectations.
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On CNBC, Jim Cramer described Repatha on Aug. 31 as “a shot that you take every other week, and what it does is reduce the risk of death by 20% in people who have high risk for a heart attack or stroke.”
That clinical trial data helped push AMGN shares up about 34.84% over the past 12 months.
MariTide and the other readouts still on the calendar
The next big test for Amgen is MariTide, its obesity drug candidate. MariTide is designed to compete with Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) Wegovy by offering monthly dosing instead of weekly injections, Zacks reported.
Amgen has about 12 Phase 3 trials running, including one for obstructive sleep apnea that finished enrolling patients at the end of August. Initial results will not arrive until 2027.
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Before then, Amgen expects results from its Phase 3 studies of dazodalibep, a drug for Sjögren’s disease, in the second half of 2026. The company designed the trials with larger patient groups, clearer participant screening, and longer duration to counter the false improvements seen in untreated patients, which has historically challenged Sjögren’s studies.
Thomas Dittrich, who returned to Amgen as chief financial officer on July 1 after previously holding senior finance roles at the company, told Morgan Stanley that he plans to keep the same guidance approach the market is used to.
The risks AMGN investors should keep watching next
For anyone thinking about buying or holding Amgen, there are a couple of things to watch.
The dazodalibep trial results later in 2026 comes first, and a positive result would give Amgen a new autoimmune franchise. Full pelacarsen data from Novartis is expected at upcoming cardiology meetings, and that data will help investors judge whether Amgen’s deeper Lp(a) reduction can succeed where Novartis did not.
Generic competition is reducing Prolia and Enbrel sales, and Medicare drug-pricing negotiations add more pressure.
If MariTide underperforms in 2027 or continues to lose market share to substitutes, the current 23.95 price-to-earnings multiple would be expensive. Amgen’s 2.61% dividend offers some income cushion while investors wait for the pipeline to pay off.
Morgan Stanley continues to rate Amgen Equal-weight, a stance analyst Terence Flynn has held since October 2023. That rating means the bank sees equal chances for the stock to rise or fall from here.
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