Item 1A. RISK FACTORS

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Item 1A. RISK FACTORS

This report and other documents we file with the SEC contain forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about us, our future performance, our business, our beliefs and our management’s assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties our business faces. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Our business is also subject to the risks that affect many other companies, such as employment relations, general economic conditions, geopolitical events and international operations. Further, additional risks not currently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may in the future materially and adversely affect our business, operations, liquidity and stock price.

Below we provide in supplemental form the material changes to our risk factors that occurred during the past quarter. Our risk factors disclosed in Part I, Item 1A, of our Annual Report, on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, provide additional disclosure for these supplemental risks and are incorporated herein by reference.

Our sales depend on coverage and reimbursement from government and commercial third-party payers, and pricing and reimbursement pressures have affected, and are likely to continue to affect, our profitability.

Sales of our products depend on the availability and extent of coverage and reimbursement from third-party payers, including government healthcare programs and private insurance plans. Governments and private payers continue to pursue initiatives to manage drug utilization and contain costs. Further, pressures on healthcare budgets from the economic downturn and inflation continue and are likely to increase across the markets we serve. Payers are increasingly focused on costs, which have resulted, and are expected to continue to result, in lower reimbursement rates for our products or narrower populations for which payers will reimburse. Continued intense public scrutiny of the price of drugs and other healthcare costs, together with payer dynamics, have limited, and are likely to continue to limit, our ability to set or adjust the price of our products based on their value, which can have a material adverse effect on our business. In the United States, particularly over the past few years, a number of legislative and regulatory proposals have been introduced and/or signed into law that attempt to lower drug prices. These include the IRA legislation that enables the U.S. government to set prices for certain drugs in Medicare, redesigns Medicare Part D benefits to shift a greater portion of the costs to manufacturers and enables the U.S. government to impose penalties if drug prices are increased at a rate faster than inflation (IRA Inflation Penalties). Additional proposals focused on drug pricing continue to be debated, and additional executive orders focused on drug pricing and competition are likely to be adopted and implemented in some form. In March 2024, the Administration released its budget plan for fiscal year 2025 that included proposals to expand the IRA’s drug price setting to more drugs and sooner after launch and making IRA Inflation Penalties applicable to commercial health insurance. Government actions or ballot initiatives at the state level also represent a highly active area of policymaking and experimentation, including pursuit of proposals that limit drug reimbursement under state run Medicaid programs based on reference prices or permitting importation of drugs from Canada. Such state policies may also eventually be adopted at the federal level.

We are unable to predict which or how many policy, regulatory, administrative or legislative changes may ultimately be, or effectively estimate the consequences to our business if, enacted and implemented. However, to the extent that payer actions further decrease or modify the coverage or reimbursement available for our products, require that we pay increased rebates or shift other costs to us, limit or affect our decisions regarding the pricing of or otherwise reduce the use of our products, such actions could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

—Changing U.S. federal coverage and reimbursement policies and practices have affected and are likely to continue to affect access to, pricing of and sales of our products

A substantial portion of our U.S. business relies on reimbursement from federal government healthcare programs and commercial insurance plans regulated by federal and state governments. See Part I, Item 1. Business—Reimbursement, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023. Our business has been and will continue to be affected by legislative actions changing U.S. federal reimbursement policy. For example, in 2022, the IRA was enacted and includes

provisions requiring that beginning in 2026, mandatory price setting be introduced in Medicare for certain drugs paid for under Parts B and D, whereby manufacturers must accept a price established by the government or face penalties on all U.S. sales (starting with 10 drugs in 2026, adding 15 in 2027 and 2028, and adding 20 in 2029 and subsequent years such that by 2031 approximately 100 drugs could be subject to such set prices). The Medicare price setting process began on August 29, 2023 when CMS announced the first 10 drugs for Medicare price setting, which includes ENBREL. Our wholly owned subsidiary, Immunex Corporation, which holds the rights to the ENBREL Biologics License Application, entered into an agreement with the U.S. government to participate in the price setting process and submitted the required data to CMS for ENBREL, including certain price, cost and patent data. On April 2, 2024, HHS announced that CMS responded to counteroffers from all manufacturers and invited manufacturers to participate in further discussions. The Medicare price setting process will conclude by August 1, 2024, and by September 1, 2024, CMS will publish prices that will be applicable to these 10 drugs in the Medicare program beginning January 1, 2026. Also under the IRA, starting on January 1, 2024, Medicare Part D was redesigned to cap beneficiary out-of-pocket costs and, beginning January 1, 2025, Federal reinsurance will be reduced in the catastrophic phase (resulting in a shift and increase of such costs to Part D plans and manufacturers, including by requiring manufacturer discounts on certain drugs). Further, the IRA created a mechanism for CMS to collect rebates from manufacturers if price increases outpace inflation. Rebate obligations began to accrue October 1, 2022 for Medicare Part D and January 1, 2023 for Medicare Part B, but CMS has not yet issued invoices and has some discretion as to when to issue such invoices to manufacturers. We expect that several of our products will be subject to these inflation rebates, and several of our products have been on lists that are issued and updated on a quarterly basis by CMS under a related program under which Medicare beneficiaries are charged reduced coinsurance if price increases exceed inflation. The IRA’s drug pricing controls and Medicare redesign are likely to have a material adverse effect on our sales, our business and our results of operations, and such impact is expected to increase through the end of the decade and will depend on factors including the extent of our portfolio’s exposure to Medicare reimbursement, the rate of inflation over time, the number of our products selected for mandatory price setting and the timing of market entry of generic or biosimilar competition. Further, following the passage of the IRA, the environment remains dynamic and U.S. policymakers continue to demonstrate interest in health care and drug pricing changes. For example, CMS issued a proposed Medicaid Drug Rebate Program rule that, if finalized, would require manufacturers to aggregate or “stack” all rebates, discounts, or other price concessions made to separate, unrelated entities across the pharmaceutical supply chain on a given unit of product to determine the “Best Price,” a metric that is used to determine Medicaid rebates and 340B statutory rates. On March 22, 2024, a final rule that could address this topic was received by the Office of Management and Budget for review. As another approach, in April 2024, CMS finalized policy changes that will give Part D plans more flexibility to substitute biosimilars for reference products on formularies in 2025. In early 2023, the HHS selected new healthcare payment and delivery models for testing, in response to an October 2022 Executive Order on Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans, including the Accelerating Clinical Evidence Model, which could introduce new payment methods that reduce reimbursement for drugs approved under accelerated approval. That Executive Order followed a 2021 Executive Order designed to increase competition in the healthcare sector, including by calling for the FDA to develop prescription drug importation programs and the FTC to apply greater scrutiny of anticompetitive activity and responses to which include actions from the HHS (which released a report with drug pricing proposals that seek to promote competition) and from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (which has taken steps to strengthen coordination with the FDA to address impediments to generic drug and biosimilar competition). Other CMS policy changes and demonstration projects to test new care, delivery and payment models can also significantly affect how drugs, including our products, are covered and reimbursed. In the fourth quarter of 2021, HHS released a plan to address drug pricing that included potential future mandatory models that link payment for prescription drugs and biologics to certain factors, including the overall cost of care. In March 2023, the Administration released its budget plan for fiscal year 2024 that included proposals to expand the number of drugs subject to mandatory Medicare price setting under the IRA, imposing such price setting activity earlier, and extending to commercial health insurance the requirement that drug manufacturers pay rebates if price increases outpace inflation. While those proposed expansions of the IRA’s drug pricing controls have not been enacted, the proposals demonstrate that this area continues to be a focus of the Administration.

We also face risks related to the reporting of pricing data that affects reimbursement of and discounts provided for our products. U.S. government price reporting regulations are complex and may require biopharmaceutical manufacturers to update certain previously submitted data. If our submitted pricing data are incorrect, we may become subject to substantial fines and penalties or other government enforcement actions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, as a result of restating previously reported price data, we may be required to pay additional rebates and provide additional discounts.

—Changing reimbursement and pricing actions in various states have negatively affected and may continue to negatively affect access to and have affected and may continue to affect sales of our products

At the state level, government actions or ballot initiatives can also affect how our products are covered and reimbursed and/or create additional pressure on our pricing decisions. Existing and proposed state pricing laws have added complexity to the pricing of drugs and may already be affecting industry pricing decisions. A number of states have adopted, and many other

states are considering, drug importation programs and other pricing actions, including proposals designed to require biopharmaceutical manufacturers to report to the state proprietary pricing information or provide advance notice of certain price increases.

States are also enacting laws referencing the IRA and seeking to regulate the 340B Drug Pricing Program. For example, following the passage of the IRA, bills have been proposed in multiple states that would apply the drug price caps set by HHS for Medicare to drug prices in an individual state. For Medicaid patients, states have established a Medicaid drug spending cap (New York) and implemented a new review and supplemental rebate negotiation process (Massachusetts). Eight states (Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington) have enacted laws that establish PDABs to identify drugs that pose affordability challenges, and four such states include authority for the state PDAB to set upper payment limits on certain drugs for in-state patients, payers and providers. So far in 2024, no fewer than 15 states have pending PDAB legislation. States with enacted PDAB laws are in various phases of implementation, with Colorado’s PDAB being the furthest along. In August 2023, the Colorado PDAB announced the first five drugs to undergo an affordability review, one of which is ENBREL. In February of 2024, the Colorado PDAB determined that ENBREL is “unaffordable” and is moving forward on rulemaking to establish an Upper Payment Limit (UPL) for ENBREL that could be effective beginning in the second quarter of 2025. Further, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia enacted laws with mandates on manufacturers participating in the 340B drug pricing program, and thus far in 2024, no fewer than 23 states have considered similar legislation. These bills vary, but include provisions on restricting a manufacturer’s ability to direct drugs in 340B channels, recognizing 340B contract pharmacies and a prohibition on requiring the inclusion of 340B claims modifiers. In March 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that Arkansas’ Act 1103, which prohibits drugmakers from restricting the acquisition or delivery of 340B drugs to covered entities and their contract pharmacies, was not preempted by the federal 340B statute. The decision could increase the number of states that will consider similar legislation. Further, in Genesis Health Care, Inc. v. Becerra, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina issued an order in November 2023 that enjoins the Health Resources and Services Administration from enforcing its more restrictive interpretation of what is considered a patient under the 340B program, to the potential benefit of healthcare systems seeking to expand the application of 340B discounts.

Additionally, on January 5, 2024, the FDA authorized Florida to move forward with its importation program proposal. Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Vermont have also enacted state importation laws, and some have submitted plans for approval to the FDA. Other states could adopt similar approaches or could pursue different policy changes in a continuing effort to reduce their costs.

Ultimately, as with U.S. federal government actions, existing or future state government actions or ballot initiatives may also have a material adverse effect on our product sales, business and results of operations.

—U.S. commercial payer actions have affected and may continue to affect access to and sales of our products

Payers, including healthcare insurers, PBMs, integrated healthcare delivery systems (vertically-integrated organizations built from consolidations of healthcare insurers and PBMs) and group purchasing organizations, increasingly seek ways to reduce their costs. With increasing frequency, payers are adopting benefit plan changes that shift a greater proportion of drug costs to patients. Such measures include more limited benefit plan designs, high deductible plans, higher patient co-pay or coinsurance obligations and more significant limitations on patients’ use of manufacturer commercial co-pay assistance programs. Further, government regulation of payers may affect these trends. For example, CMS finalized a policy for plan years starting on or after January 1, 2021 that has caused commercial payers to more widely adopt co-pay accumulator adjustment programs. While the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down this policy in September 2023 and further clarified in December 2023 that its ruling had the effect of reinstating the co-pay accumulator adjustment policy from 2020, CMS and HHS have signaled that they do not intend to enforce certain restrictions from the 2020 policy that would reduce the adoption of co-pay accumulator adjustment programs. Payers, including PBMs, have sought, and continue to seek, price discounts or rebates in connection with the placement of our products on their formularies or those they manage, and to also impose restrictions on access to or usage of our products (such as Step Therapy), require that patients receive the payer’s prior authorization before covering the product, and/or chosen to exclude certain indications for which our products are approved. For example, some payers require physicians to demonstrate or document that the patients for whom Repatha has been prescribed meet their utilization criteria, and these requirements have served to limit and may continue to limit patient access to Repatha treatment. In an effort to reduce barriers to access, we reduced the net price of Repatha by providing greater discounts and rebates to payers (including PBMs that administer Medicare Part D prescription drug plans), and in response to a very high percentage of Medicare patients abandoning their Repatha prescriptions rather than paying their co-pay, we introduced a set of new National Drug Codes to make Repatha available at a lower list price. However, affordability of patient out-of-pocket co-pay cost has limited and may continue to limit patient use. Further, despite these net and list price reductions, some payers have restricted, and may continue to restrict, patient access and may seek further discounts or rebates or take other actions, such as changing formulary coverage for Repatha, that could reduce our sales of Repatha. These factors have limited, and may continue to limit, patient affordability and use, negatively affecting Repatha sales.

Further, significant consolidation in the health insurance industry has resulted in a few large insurers and PBMs, which places greater pressure on pricing and usage negotiations with biopharmaceutical manufacturers, significantly increasing discount and rebate requirements and limiting patient access and usage. For example, in the United States, as of the beginning of 2024, the top five integrated health plans and PBMs controlled about 92% of all pharmacy prescriptions. This high degree of consolidation among insurers, PBMs and other payers, including integrated healthcare delivery systems and/or with specialty or mail-order pharmacies and pharmacy retailers, has increased the negotiating leverage such entities have over us and other biopharmaceutical manufacturers and has resulted in greater price discounts, rebates and service fees realized by those payers from our business. Each of CVS, Express Scripts and United Health Group (among the top five integrated health plans and PBMs), have Rebate Management Organizations that further increase their leverage to negotiate deeper discounts. Ultimately, additional discounts, rebates, fees, coverage changes, plan changes, restrictions or exclusions imposed by these commercial payers could have a material adverse effect on our product sales, business and results of operations. Policy reforms advanced by Congress or the Administration that refine the role of PBMs in the U.S. marketplace could have downstream implications or consequences for our business and how we interact with these entities. For example, in June 2022, the FTC launched an inquiry into the business practices of PBMs and subsequently expanded the investigation to the three rebate management organizations owned by the three largest PBMs. In addition, multiple Congressional Committees are investigating PBM practices and have also proposed legislation that could increase transparency and reporting of these practices and/or impact rebates and service fees. The results of such inquiry could have an effect on manufacturer interactions with PBMs, resulting in changes to access for certain medicines. See our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors—Concentration of sales at certain of our wholesaler distributors, and consolidation of private payers, such as insurers, and PBMs has negatively affected, and may continue to negatively affect, our business.

Our business is also affected by policies implemented by private healthcare entities that process Medicare claims, including Medicare Administrative Contractors. For example, in the second quarter of 2022, several Medicare Administrative Contractors issued notice that TEZSPIRE would be added to their “self-administered drug” exclusion lists. Although the Medicare Administrative Contractors subsequently removed TEZSPIRE from their exclusion lists, these exclusions, if reintroduced and/or implemented, would result in Medicare beneficiaries with severe asthma losing access to TEZSPIRE coverage under Medicare Part B and potentially also under Medicare Advantage.

—Government and commercial payer actions outside the United States have affected and will continue to affect access to and sales of our products

Outside the United States, we expect countries will also continue to take actions to reduce their drug expenditures and to reduce intellectual property protections. See Part I, Item 1. Business—Reimbursement, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023. Pressures to decrease drug expenditures may intensify as governments take actions to address budgets strained by high inflation, expenditures to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and weak economic conditions, including in Europe where the effects of the Russia–Ukraine conflict have challenged the economies in that region. Further, the EU is currently undergoing a review and revision of its pharmaceutical legislation that, while full implementation is not expected before 2027, could lead to proposals that will reduce intellectual property protection for new products (including potentially shortening the duration of regulatory data exclusivity and orphan drug exclusivity protections), as well as change the reimbursement and regulatory landscape. International reference pricing has been widely used by many countries outside the United States to control costs based on an external benchmark of a product’s price in other countries. International reference pricing policies can change quickly and frequently and may not reflect differences in the burden of disease, indications, market structures or affordability differences across countries or regions. Other expenditure control practices, including but not limited to the use of revenue clawbacks, rebates and caps on product sales, are used in various foreign jurisdictions as well. In addition, countries may refuse to reimburse or may restrict the reimbursed population for a product when their national health technology assessments do not consider a medicine to demonstrate sufficient clinical benefit beyond existing therapies or to meet certain cost effectiveness thresholds. For example, despite the EMA’s approval of Repatha for the treatment of patients with established atherosclerotic disease, prior to 2020, the reimbursement of Repatha in France was limited to a narrower patient population (such as those with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH)) following a national health technology assessment. Many countries decide on reimbursement between potentially competing products through national or regional tenders that often result in one product receiving most or all of the sales in that country or region. Failure to obtain coverage and reimbursement for our products, a deterioration in their existing coverage and reimbursement or a decline in the timeliness or certainty of payment by payers to hospitals and other providers has negatively affected, and may further negatively affect, the ability or willingness of healthcare providers to prescribe our products for their patients and otherwise negatively affect the use of our products or the prices we realize for them. Such changes have had, and could in the future have, a material adverse effect on our product sales, business and results of operations.

A breakdown of our information technology systems, cyberattack or information security breach could significantly compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our information technology systems, network-connected control systems and/or our data, interrupt the operation of our business and/or affect our reputation.

To achieve our business objectives, we rely on sophisticated information technology systems, including hardware, software, technology infrastructure, online sites and networks for both internal and external operations, mobile applications, cloud services and network-connected control systems, some of which are managed, hosted, provided or serviced by third parties. Internal or external events that compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our systems and data may significantly interrupt the operation of our business, result in significant costs and/or adversely affect our reputation.

Our information technology systems are highly integrated into our business, including our R&D efforts, our clinical and commercial manufacturing processes and our product sales and distribution processes. Further, as the majority of our employees work remotely for some portion of their jobs in our hybrid work environment, our reliance on our and third-party information technology systems has increased substantially and is expected to continue to increase. Remote and hybrid working arrangements, including those of at many third-party providers, can increase cybersecurity risks due to the challenges associated with managing remote computing assets and security vulnerabilities that are present in many non-corporate and home networks. The complexity and interconnected nature of software, hardware and our systems make them vulnerable to breakdown or other service interruptions, and to software errors or defects, misconfiguration and other security vulnerabilities. Upgrades or changes to our systems or the software that we use have resulted and we expect, in the future, will result in the introduction of new cybersecurity vulnerabilities and risks. In 2022, we identified a number of security vulnerabilities introduced into our information systems as a result of flaws that we subsequently identified in software that we had purchased and installed, and these flaws required that we apply emergency patches to certain of our systems. While we did not experience any significant adverse effects as a result of these vulnerabilities, there can be no assurance that we will timely identify and address future vulnerabilities. Our systems are also subject to frequent perimeter network reconnaissance and scanning, phishing and other cyberattacks. For example, as a result of our cybersecurity monitoring of the Horizon legacy information systems, we detected phishing activity in the accounts of two Horizon executives. These accounts were de-activated, the incidents were investigated and the determination was made separately by both our internal cybersecurity team and our external digital forensics and incident response supplier that no confidential information had been exfiltrated. As the cyber-threat landscape evolves, these attacks are growing in frequency, sophistication, and intensity, and are becoming increasingly difficult to detect and increasingly sophisticated in using techniques and tools—including artificial intelligence—that circumvent security controls, evade detection and remove forensic evidence. Such attacks could include the use of harmful and virulent malware, including ransomware or other denials of service, which can be deployed through various means, including the software supply chain, e-mail, malicious websites and/or the use of social engineering/phishing.

We have also experienced denial of service attacks against our network, and, although such attacks did not succeed, there can be no assurance that our efforts to guard against the wide and growing variety of potential attack techniques will be successful in the future. Attacks such as those experienced by government entities (including those that approve and/or regulate our products, such as the EMA) and other multi-national companies, including some of our peers, could leave us unable to utilize key business systems or access or protect important data, and could have a material adverse effect on our ability to operate our business, including developing, gaining regulatory approval for, manufacturing, selling and/or distributing our products. For example, in 2017, a pharmaceutical company experienced a cyberattack involving virulent malware that significantly disrupted its operations, including its research and sales operations and the production of some of its medicines and vaccines. As a result of the cyberattack, its orders and sales for certain products were negatively affected. In late 2020, SolarWinds Corporation, a leading provider of software for monitoring and managing information technology infrastructure, disclosed that it had suffered a cybersecurity incident whereby attackers had inserted malicious code into legitimate software updates for its products that were installed by myriad private and government customers, enabling the attackers to access a backdoor to such systems. In 2022, Okta, Inc., a provider of software that helps companies manage user authentication, disclosed that several hundred of its corporate customers were vulnerable to a security breach that allowed attackers to access Okta’s internal network. Although this breach did not have a significant effect on our business, there can be no assurance that a similar future breach would not result in a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations.

Our systems also contain and use a high volume of sensitive data, including intellectual property, trade secrets and other proprietary business information, financial information, regulatory information, strategic plans, sales trends and forecasts, litigation materials and/or personal identifiable information belonging to us, our staff, our patients, customers and/or other parties. In some cases, we utilize third-party service providers to collect, process, store, manage or transmit such data, which have increased our risk. Intentional or inadvertent data privacy or security breaches (including cyberattacks) resulting from attacks or lapses by employees, service providers (including providers of information technology-specific services), business partners, nation states (including groups associated with or supported by foreign intelligence agencies), organized crime organizations, “hacktivists” or others, create risks that our sensitive data may be exposed to unauthorized persons, our competitors or the public. System vulnerabilities and/or cybersecurity breaches experienced by our third-party service providers have constituted a substantial share of the information security risks that have affected us. For example, in the first half of 2021, a supplier experienced a data breach in which an unauthorized third party acquired access to certain information provided to the supplier in the course of its provision of services to us, including business documents and certain personally identifiable patient information (not including social security or other financial or health insurance information). As required, we promptly notified the applicable state attorneys general and the individuals whose personally identifiable information was affected of this data breach at the supplier. In the third quarter of 2022, another service provider experienced a similar cybersecurity breach in which an attacker exfiltrated certain data (including non-significant Amgen data) from the service provider’s systems. Although these supplier data breaches have not resulted in material adverse effects on our business, there can be no assurance that a similar future cybersecurity incident would not result in a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations. Further, the timeliness of our awareness of a cybersecurity incident affects our ability to respond to and work to mitigate the severity of such events. For example, in 2020 and 2022, two of our vendors experienced cyberattacks and each initially reported to us that neither event involved our data. However, upon further investigation, they each subsequently informed us that the attackers had accessed limited, non-significant Amgen information. Although neither of these breaches had a significant adverse effect on our business, in the future we may again not receive timely reporting of cybersecurity events and such events could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Cyberattackers are also increasingly exploiting vulnerabilities in commercially available software from shared or open-source code. We rely on third party commercial software that have had and may have such vulnerabilities, but as use of open-source code is frequently not disclosed, our ability to fully assess this risk to our systems is limited. For example, in December 2021, a remote code execution vulnerability was discovered in a software library that is widely used in a variety of commercially available software and services. Although this vulnerability has not resulted in any significant adverse effects on us, there can be no assurances that a similar future vulnerability in the software and services that we use would not result in a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations.

Domestic and global government regulators, our business partners, suppliers with whom we do business, companies that provide us or our partners with business services and companies we have acquired or may acquire face similar risks. Security breaches of their systems or service outages have adversely affected systems and could, in the future, affect our systems and security, leave us without access to important systems, products, raw materials, components, services or information, or expose our confidential data or sensitive personal information. For example, in 2019, two vendors that perform testing and analytical services that we use in developing and manufacturing our products experienced cyberattacks, and in April and September of 2020, vendors that provide us with information technology services and clinical data services, respectively, each experienced ransomware attacks. Although there was no breach of our systems, each of these incidents required us to disconnect our systems from those vendors’ systems. While we were able to reconnect our systems following restoration of these vendors’ capabilities without significantly affecting product availability, a more extended service outage affecting these or other vendors, particularly where such vendor is the single source from which we obtain the services, could have a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations. In February 2024, Change Healthcare, a large U.S. insurance claim and co-pay card processing clearinghouse, experienced a ransomware attack that has caused significant disruptions to healthcare provider and pharmacy operations. While Change Healthcare does not directly provide us with services, disruptions to co-pay card support, insurance billing and Medicaid rebate processing led to lost sales and required us to take action to help patients access their medications and to provide extended payment terms to certain customers. Although services have been rerouted, and in some cases restored, and the impact on our business has been immaterial, similar disruptions may occur in the future stemming from the interconnectedness of the U.S. healthcare ecosystem and industry reliance on centralized claims processing systems and networks, and such future disruptions may have a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations. In addition, we distribute our products in the United States primarily through three pharmaceutical wholesalers, and a security breach that impairs the distribution operations of our wholesalers could significantly impair our ability to deliver our products to healthcare providers and patients. There can be no assurance that our cybersecurity risk management program and processes, including our policies, controls, or procedures, will be fully implemented, complied with or effective in protecting our information technology systems and sensitive data.

Although we have experienced system breakdowns, attacks and information security breaches, we do not believe such breakdowns, attacks and breaches have had a material adverse effect on our business or results of operations. We will continue to experience varying degrees of cyberattacks and other incidents in the future. Even though we continue to invest in the monitoring, protection and resilience of our critical and/or sensitive data and systems, there can be no assurances that our efforts will detect, prevent or fully recover systems or data from all breakdowns, service interruptions, attacks and/or breaches of our systems that could adversely affect our business and operations and/or result in the loss or exposure of critical, proprietary, private, confidential or otherwise sensitive data, which could result in material financial, legal business or reputational harm to us or negatively affect our stock price. While we maintain cyber-liability insurance, our insurance is not sufficient to cover us against all losses that could potentially result from a service interruption, breach of our systems or loss of our critical or sensitive data.

We are also subject to various laws and regulations globally regarding privacy and data protection, including laws and regulations relating to the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer and security of personal data. The legislative and regulatory environment regarding privacy and data protection is continuously evolving and developing and the subject of significant attention globally. For example, we are subject to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became effective in May 2018, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which became effective in January 2020, both of which provide for substantial penalties for noncompliance. The CCPA was amended in late 2020, to create the California Privacy Rights Act to create opt in requirements for the use of sensitive personal data and the formation of a new dedicated agency for the enforcement of the law, the California Privacy Protection Agency. Similar consumer privacy laws went into effect in Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Connecticut and Florida in 2023. Consumer privacy laws were also passed in 11 other states, with the earliest effective dates later this year, and proposed in three additional states. Outside the United States, other jurisdictions where we operate have passed, or continue to propose, similar legislation and/or regulations. For example, in China, the Personal Information Protection Law and the Data Security Law, which regulate data processing activities associated with personal and nonpersonal data, are in effect and build upon the existing Cybersecurity Law. Failure to comply with these current and future laws could result in significant penalties and reputational harm and could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Our sales and operations are subject to the risks of doing business internationally, including in emerging markets.

As we continue our expansion efforts in emerging markets around the world, through acquisitions and licensing transactions as well as through the development and introduction, both independently and through collaborations such as our collaboration with BeiGene, of our products in new markets, we face numerous risks to our business. There is no guarantee that our efforts and strategies to expand sales in emerging markets will succeed. Our international business, including in China and emerging market countries, may be especially vulnerable to periods of global and local political, legal, regulatory and financial instability, including issues of geopolitical relations, the imposition of international sanctions in response to certain state actions and/or sovereign debt issues, and management of health policy in response to pressures such as global pandemics. For example, the BIOSECURE Act that would prohibit federal contracting with companies that have commercial connections with enumerated “biotechnology companies of concern” located in certain geographies, including China, has been proposed in the U.S. Congress, and, if enacted, could restrict our ability to contract or collaborate with such biotechnology companies. If relations between the United States and other governments deteriorate, our business and investments in such markets may also be adversely affected. We may also be required to increase our reliance on third-party agents and unfamiliar operations and arrangements including those previously utilized by companies we partner with or acquire in emerging markets. See We must conduct clinical trials in humans before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications. Our expansion efforts in China and emerging markets around the world are dependent upon the establishment of an environment that is predictable, navigable and supportive of biopharmaceutical innovation, sustained access for our products and predictable pricing controls. For example, China continues to strengthen regulations on the collection, use and transmission of Chinese human genetic resources, and has expanded regulations on the conduct of biotechnology R&D activities in China. Between 2020 and 2022, we experienced delays in our applications to the Human Genetic Resources Administration of China that sought approval to conduct clinical trials in China. Our international operations and business may also be subject to less protective intellectual property or other applicable laws, diverse data privacy and protection requirements, changing tax laws and tariffs, trade restrictions or other barriers designed to protect industry in the home country against foreign competition, far-reaching antibribery and anticorruption laws and regulations and/or evolving legal and regulatory environments. For example, recent cross-border data transfer compliance requirements in China may also impose additional costs of doing business, including costs associated with localizing operations.

In response to the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine, the U.S. government, numerous state governments, the EU and other countries in which we conduct business have imposed a wide range of economic sanctions that restrict commerce and business dealings with Russia, certain regions of Ukraine and certain entities and individuals. Additionally, the armed conflict in the Middle East that has been ongoing since October 2023 has caused regional disruptions to economic activity. For a description of the conflict’s impact on our third-party contract manufacturing of KRYSTEXXA, see our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors—Our efforts to collaborate with or acquire other companies, products, or technology, and to integrate the operations of companies or to support the products or technology we have acquired, may not be successful, and may result in unanticipated costs, delays or failures to realize the benefits of the transactions. These conflicts may also precipitate or amplify the other risks described herein, including risks relating to cybersecurity, global economic conditions, clinical trials and supply chains, which could adversely affect our business, operations and financial condition and results.

As we expand internationally, we are subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar. While we have a program in place that is designed to reduce our exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations through foreign currency hedging arrangements, our hedging efforts do not completely offset the effect of these fluctuations on our revenues and earnings. Overall, the legal and operational challenges of our international business operations, along with government controls, the challenges of attracting and retaining qualified personnel and obtaining and/or maintaining necessary regulatory or pricing approvals of our products, may result in material adverse effects on our international product sales, business and results of operations.

We must conduct clinical trials in humans before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications.

Before a product may be sold, we must conduct clinical trials to demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans. The results of those clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA and EMA. See our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors—Our current products and products in development cannot be sold without regulatory approval. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims. The length of time, number of trial sites and number of patients required for clinical trials vary substantially, and we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain clinical trials. In addition, we may have difficulty finding a sufficient number of clinical trial sites and/or patients to participate in our clinical trials, particularly if competitors are conducting clinical trials in similar patient populations and/or in rare disease therapy clinical trials due to the inherently small patient population potentially served by such therapies. Patients may withdraw from clinical trials at any time (including trials in which patients believe that they may not be receiving a clinical benefit), and privacy laws and/or other restrictions in certain countries may restrict the ability of clinical trial investigators to conduct further follow-up on such patients, which may adversely affect the interpretation of study results. Delays and complications in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, associated delays in regulatory approvals and in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels.

Further, to increase the number of patients available for enrollment in our clinical trials, we have opened, and will continue to open, clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including India, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore and some Central and South American countries, either through utilization of third-party contract clinical trial providers entirely or in combination with local staff. Conducting clinical trials in locations where we have limited experience requires substantial time and resources to understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. For other examples of the risks of conducting clinical trials in China, see also Our sales and operations are subject to the risks of doing business internationally, including in emerging markets. Further, we must ensure the timely production, distribution and delivery of the clinical supply of our product candidates to numerous and varied clinical trial sites. Additionally, regional disruptions, including natural and man-made disasters, health emergencies (such as novel viruses or pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic), or geopolitical conflicts (such as the ongoing armed conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East) have significantly disrupted the timing of clinical trials, and in the future could disrupt the timing, execution and outcome of clinical trials. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and diverse regulatory aspects of our clinical trials or to manage the production or distribution of our clinical supply, or such sites experience disruptions as a result of a natural/man-made disaster, health emergency or geopolitical conflict, corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. For example, our clinical trials were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. If we are unable to market and sell our products or product candidates or to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We rely on independent third-party clinical investigators to recruit patients and conduct clinical trials on our behalf in accordance with applicable study protocols, laws and regulations. We also rely on unaffiliated third-party vendors to perform certain aspects of our clinical trial operations. Further, the disease states that we are studying, such as cancers, require complex treatment protocols that may be difficult to consistently apply across global trial sites, which can impact the quality, interpretability and/or registrability of the data generated. In some circumstances, we enter into co-development arrangements with other pharmaceutical and medical devices companies that provide for the other company to conduct certain clinical trials for the product we are co-developing or to develop a diagnostic test used in screening or monitoring patients in our clinical trials. See our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors—Some of our pharmaceutical pipeline and our commercial product sales rely on collaborations with third parties, which may adversely affect the development and sales of our products. We also may acquire companies that have past or ongoing clinical trials or rights to products or product candidates for which clinical trials have been or are being conducted. These trials may not have been conducted to the same standards as ours; however, once an acquisition has been completed we assume responsibility for the conduct of these trials, including any potential risks and liabilities associated with the past and prospective conduct of those trials. If regulatory authorities determine that we or others, including our licensees or co-development partners, or the independent investigators or vendors selected by us, our co-development partners or by a company we have acquired or from which we have acquired rights to a product or product candidate, have not complied with regulations applicable to the clinical trials, those authorities may refuse or reject some or all of the clinical trial data or take other actions that could delay or otherwise negatively affect our ability to obtain or maintain marketing approval of the product or indication. In addition, delays or failures to develop diagnostic tests for our clinical trials can affect the timely enrollment of such trials and lead to delays or inability to obtain marketing approval. If we were unable to market and sell our products or product candidates, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

In addition, some of our clinical trials utilize drugs and combination products manufactured and marketed by other pharmaceutical companies or vendors. These drugs, devices and/or products may be administered or used in clinical trials in combination with one of our products or product candidates or in a head-to-head study comparing the products’ or product candidates’ relative efficacy and safety. In the event that any of these vendors or pharmaceutical companies have unforeseen issues that negatively affect the quality of their work product or create a shortage of supply, or if we are otherwise unable to obtain an adequate supply of these other drugs, our ability to complete our applicable clinical trials and/or evaluate clinical results may also be negatively affected. As a result, such quality or supply problems could adversely affect our ability to timely file for, gain or maintain regulatory approvals worldwide.

Clinical trials must generally be designed based on the current standard of medical care. However, in certain diseases, such as cancer, the standard of care is evolving rapidly. In some cases, we may design a clinical trial based on the standard of care we anticipate will exist at the time our study is completed. The duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on standards of medical care that are no longer or that have not become the current standards by the time such trials are completed, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Additionally, the views of regulatory agencies relating to the requirements for accelerated approval may change over time, and trial designs that were sufficient to support accelerated approvals for some oncology products may not be considered sufficient for later candidates. We may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and therefore may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates or new indications for existing products and/or maintain our current product labels. Participants in clinical trials of our products and product candidates may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects that could, among other factors, delay or terminate clinical trial programs and/or require additional or longer trials to gain approval.

Even after a product is on the market, safety concerns may require additional or more extensive clinical trials as part of a risk management plan for our product or for approval of a new indication. Additional clinical trials we initiate, including those required by the FDA, could result in substantial additional expense, and the outcomes could result in further label restrictions or the loss of regulatory approval for an approved indication, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our product sales, business and results of operations. Additionally, any negative results from such trials could materially affect the extent of approvals, the use, reimbursement and sales of our products, our business and results of operations.

We rely on third-party suppliers for certain of our raw materials, medical devices and components.

We rely on unaffiliated third-party suppliers for certain raw materials, medical devices and components necessary for the manufacturing of our commercial and clinical products. Certain of those raw materials, medical devices and components are proprietary products of those unaffiliated third-party suppliers and are specifically cited in our drug applications with regulatory agencies so that they must be obtained from that specific sole source or sources and could not be obtained from another supplier unless and until the regulatory agency approved such supplier. For example, we rely on a single source for the SureClick® autoinjectors used in the drug delivery of Repatha, ENBREL, Aimovig, AMJEVITA/AMGEVITA and Aranesp, and we also rely on a single source for the Pushtronex® automated mini doser used in the drug delivery of Repatha. Recently, to uphold the high standards that we have set for patient experience and the need for a reliable supply of components, we have decided to discontinue the Repatha automated mini doser presentation in all countries and are working with health care professionals to transition patients to alternative Repatha delivery options. Also, certain of the raw materials required in the commercial and clinical manufacturing of our products are sourced from other countries and/or derived from biological sources, including mammalian tissues, bovine serum and human serum albumin.

Among the reasons we may be unable to obtain these raw materials, medical devices and components include:

  • regulatory requirements or action by regulatory agencies or others;

  • adverse financial or other strategic developments at or affecting the supplier, including bankruptcy;

  • unexpected demand for or shortage of raw materials, medical devices or components;

  • failure to comply with our quality standards which results in quality and product failures, complaints, product contamination and/or recall;

  • a material shortage, contamination, recall and/or restrictions on the use of certain biologically derived substances or other raw materials;

  • discovery of previously unknown or undetected imperfections in raw materials, medical devices or components;

  • cyberattacks on supplier systems;

  • natural or other disasters, including hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes or fires;

  • labor disputes (such as strikes) or shortages, including from the effects of health emergencies (such as novel viruses or pandemics) or natural disasters; and

  • geopolitical conflicts (such as the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East).

For example, in prior years we have experienced shortages in certain components necessary for the formulation, fill and finish of certain of our products in our Puerto Rico facility, and we have also experienced shortages related to single use systems and packaging which has caused disruptions to our manufacturing plans. Further quality issues that result in unexpected additional demand for certain components have resulted in shortages and in the future may lead to shortages of required raw materials or components (such as we have experienced with EPOGEN glass vials). We may experience similar or other shortages in the future resulting in delayed shipments, supply constraints, clinical trial delays, contract disputes and/or stock-outs of our products. These or other similar events could negatively affect our ability to satisfy demand for our products or conduct clinical trials, which could have a material adverse effect on our product sales, business and results of operations.

Item 2. UNREGISTERED SALES OF EQUITY SECURITIES AND USE OF PROCEEDS

During the three months ended March 31, 2024, we had one outstanding stock repurchase program, under which we had no repurchase activity.

PeriodTotal number of shares purchasedAverage price paid per shareTotal number of shares purchased as part of publicly announced programMaximum dollar value that may yet be purchased under the program
January 1–31——$6,979,263,848
February 1–29——$6,979,263,848
March 1–31——$6,979,263,848
Total——

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