FDA Approves New Use for Amgen Drug Neupogen

Amgen, the giant Thousand Oaks biotechnology concern, said one of its drugs has been approved for additional use with a fast-growing cancer treatment.

Neupogen has been used since 1991 to help chemotherapy patients fight infections. Now, Amgen said, the federal Food and Drug Administration has cleared the drug for use with a procedure that can be used instead of bone marrow transplants for cancer patients.

With the procedure, called peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation (PBPC), stem cells are removed from the blood instead of from bone marrow, a less invasive procedure that allows patients an easier recovery, Amgen said. Neupogen is used with PBPC to increase the release of cells from the bone marrow into the blood. The cells are then harvested from the blood and stored for use after patients undergo chemotherapy.

Amgen said a recent study found that PBPC can provide faster patient recovery at a lower cost than bone marrow transplants. Neupogen is used, it said, to help patients’ white and red blood cells and platelets recover more rapidly following intensive chemotherapy, thus lowering their risk of severe infections, anemia and bleeding complications.

In 1994, about 17,000 cell transplants were performed in the United States, 9,000 of them PBPC transplants, Amgen said.