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AMGN » Topics » Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales couldThis excerpt taken from the AMGN 10-Q filed May 11, 2009. Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales could be adversely affected. Before we can sell any products, we must conduct clinical trials which demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our products or product candidates in human patients having the diseases or medical conditions we are trying to address. Conducting clinical trials is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims we are seeking or to support our existing label. The length of time, number of trial sites and patients required for clinical trials vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the product candidate or the extent of the safety concerns, post-marketing issues and/or exposure to patients and therefore, we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain trials. Our ability to complete our clinical trials in a timely fashion depends in large part on a number of key factors including protocol design, the rate of occurrence of the clinical trial events being studied, regulatory and institutional review board approval, availability of clinical study material and the rate of patient enrollment in clinical trials. Patient enrollment is a function of several factors, including the size and location of the patient population, enrollment criteria and competition with other clinical trials for eligible patients. As such, there may be limited availability of patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials. Delays in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, delays in regulatory approvals, associated delays in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels. In addition, in order to increase the number of patients available for enrollment for our clinical trials, we have and will continue to open clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of new geographic locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including Russia, India, East Asia and some Central and South American countries either through
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Table of Contentsutilization 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 identify and understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and regulatory aspects of our large, complex and regulatory diverse clinical trials, our clinical trials and corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates altogether or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. If we are unable to market and sell our product candidates or are unable to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. Additional information on our clinical trials can be found on our website at www.amgen.com. (This website address is not intended to function as a hyperlink, and the information contained on our website is not intended to be a part of this filing.) Patients may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects in the course of our, our licensees, partners or independent investigators clinical trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our product candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. Delays may sometimes be substantial. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder) in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line NSCLC, which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Following initiation of the trial, in November 2008, we and our development partners announced that enrollment in this phase 3 trial had been temporarily suspended following a planned safety data review of 600 patients by the studys independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC). The studys DMC also recommended that patients with squamous NSCLC immediately discontinue motesanib therapy but did not recommend discontinuation of motesanib therapy for patients with non-squamous NSCLC. In February 2009, the DMC recommended the trial resume enrollment of patients with non-squamous NSCLC, and we are currently preparing to reinitiate enrollment in this patient population following an FDA-approved revision to the study protocol. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. Even after a product is on the market, safety concerns may require additional or more extensive clinical trials as part of a pharmacovigilance program of our product or for approval of a new indication. For example, we are moving forward with Study 782 as part of our Aranesp® pharmacovigilance program. We are currently identifying clinical sites for Study 782 and plan to begin patient enrollment this year. The addition of this or other clinical trials to our pharmacovigilance program and any additional clinical trials we initiate, including those required by the FDA, could result in substantial additional expense, and their outcomes could result in additional label restrictions or the loss of regulatory approval for an approved indication, each of which may have a material adverse effect on our 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 ESA products. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and sought greater efficiencies in how we conduct our business, including optimizing ongoing clinical trials and trial initiation. To the extent future sales are negatively affected as a result of additional regulatory and reimbursement developments or other challenges, we may be required to further adjust our R&D investment plans. Such actions could result in delays in obtaining approval or reductions in the number of indications and market potential of our product candidates.
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Table of ContentsThese excerpts taken from the AMGN 10-K filed Feb 27, 2009. Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales could be adversely affected. Before we can sell any products, we must conduct clinical trials which demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our products or product candidates in human patients hav-
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Table of Contentsing the diseases or medical conditions we are trying to address. Conducting clinical trials is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims we are seeking or to support our existing label. The length of time, number of trial sites and patients required for clinical trials vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the product candidate or the extent of the safety concerns, post-marketing issues and/or exposure to patients and therefore, we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain trials. Our ability to complete our clinical trials in a timely fashion depends in large part on a number of key factors including protocol design, regulatory and institutional review board approval, availability of clinical study material and the rate of patient enrollment in clinical trials. Patient enrollment is a function of several factors, including the size and location of the patient population, enrollment criteria and competition with other clinical trials for eligible patients. As such, there may be limited availability of patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials. Delays in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, delays in regulatory approvals, associated delays in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels. In addition, in order to increase the number of patients available for enrollment for our clinical trials, we have and will continue to open clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of new geographic locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including Russia, India, East Asia 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 identify and understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and regulatory aspects of our large, complex and regulatory diverse clinical trials, our clinical trials and corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates altogether or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. If we are unable to market and sell our product candidates or are unable to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. Additional information on our clinical trials can be found on our website at (http://www.amgen.com). (This website address is not intended to function as a hyperlink, and the information contained on our website is not intended to be a part of this filing.) Patients may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects in the course of our, our licensees, partners or independent investigators clinical trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our product candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder) in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line NSCLC, which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and sought greater efficiencies in how we conduct our business, including optimizing ongoing clinical trials and trial initiation. To the extent future sales are negatively affected as a result of additional regulatory and reimbursement developments or other challenges, we may be required to further adjust our R&D investment plans. Such actions could result in delays in obtaining approval or reductions in the number of indications and market potential of our product candidates.
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Table of ContentsBefore we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our products or product candidates in human patients hav-
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trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our product candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder) in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line NSCLC, which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and 45 Table of ContentsThis excerpt taken from the AMGN 10-Q filed Nov 7, 2008. Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales could be adversely affected. Before we can sell any products, we must conduct clinical trials which demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our product candidates in human patients having the diseases or medical conditions we are trying to address. Conducting clinical trials is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims we are seeking or to support our existing label. The length of time, number of trial sites and patients required for clinical trials vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the product candidate or the extent of the safety concerns, post-
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Table of Contentsmarketing issues and/or exposure to patients and therefore, we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain trials. Our ability to complete our clinical trials in a timely fashion depends in large part on a number of key factors including protocol design, regulatory and institutional review board approval, availability of clinical study material and the rate of patient enrollment in clinical trials. Patient enrollment is a function of several factors, including the size and location of the patient population, enrollment criteria and competition with other clinical trials for eligible patients. As such, there may be limited availability of patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials. Delays in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, delays in regulatory approvals, associated delays in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels. In addition, in order to increase the number of patients available for enrollment for our clinical trials, we have and will continue to open clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of new geographic locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including Russia, China, India 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 identify and understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and regulatory aspects of our large, complex and regulatory diverse clinical trials, our clinical trials and corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates altogether or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. If we are unable to market and sell our product candidates or are unable to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. Additional information on our clinical trials can be found on our website at (http://www.amgen.com). (This website address is not intended to function as a hyperlink, and the information contained on our website is not intended to be a part of this filing.) Patients may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects in the course of our, our licensees, partners or independent investigators clinical trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our product candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder) in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib diphosphate, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line non-small cell lung cancer, which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and sought greater efficiencies in how we conduct our business, including optimizing ongoing clinical trials and trial initiation. To the extent future sales are negatively affected as a result of additional regulatory and reimbursement developments or other challenges, we may be required to further adjust our R&D investment plans. Such actions could result in delays in obtaining approval or reductions in the number of indications and market potential of our product candidates.
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Table of ContentsThis excerpt taken from the AMGN 10-Q filed Aug 8, 2008. Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales could be adversely affected. Before we can sell any products, we must conduct clinical trials which demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our product candidates in human patients having the diseases or medical conditions we are trying to address. Conducting clinical trials is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims we are seeking or to support our existing label. The length of time, number of trial sites and patients required for clinical trials vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the product candidate or the extent of the safety concerns, post-marketing issues and/or exposure to patients and therefore, we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain trials. Our ability to complete our clinical trials in a timely fashion depends in
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Table of Contentslarge part on a number of key factors including protocol design, regulatory and institutional review board approval, availability of clinical study material and the rate of patient enrollment in clinical trials. Patient enrollment is a function of several factors, including the size and location of the patient population, enrollment criteria and competition with other clinical trials for eligible patients. As such, there may be limited availability of patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials. Delays in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, delays in regulatory approvals, associated delays in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels. In addition, in order to increase the number of patients available for enrollment for our clinical trials, we have and will continue to open clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of new geographic locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including Russia, China, India 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 identify and understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and regulatory aspects of our large, complex and regulatory diverse clinical trials, our clinical trials and corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates altogether or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. If we are unable to market and sell our product candidates or are unable to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. Additional information on our clinical trials can be found on our website at (http://www.amgen.com). (This website address is not intended to function as a hyperlink, and the information contained on our website is not intended to be a part of this filing.) Patients may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects in the course of our, our licensees, partners or independent investigators clinical trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our product candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis, inflammation of the gall bladder, in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib diphosphate, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line non-small cell lung cancer, which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and sought greater efficiencies in how we conduct our business, including optimizing ongoing clinical trials and trial initiation. To the extent future sales are negatively affected as a result of additional regulatory and reimbursement developments or other challenges, we may be required to further adjust our R&D investment plans. Such actions could result in delays in obtaining approval or reductions in the number of indications and market potential of our product candidates. This excerpt taken from the AMGN 10-Q filed May 12, 2008. Before we commercialize and sell any of our product candidates or existing products for new indications, we must conduct clinical trials in humans; if we fail to adequately manage these trials we may not be able to sell future products and our sales could be adversely affected. Before we can sell any products, we must conduct clinical trials which demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in humans for the indications sought or our existing products are safe and effective for use in humans in new indications sought. Additionally, we may be required to conduct additional trials as a condition of the approval of our label or as a result of perceived or existing safety concerns. The results of these clinical trials are used as the basis to obtain regulatory approval from regulatory authorities such as the FDA. Clinical trials are experiments conducted using our product candidates in human patients having the diseases or medical conditions we are trying to address. Conducting clinical trials is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process. We are required to conduct clinical trials using an appropriate number of trial sites and patients to support the product label claims we are seeking or to support our existing label. The length of time, number of trial sites and patients required for clinical trials vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the product candidate or the extent of the safety concerns, post-marketing issues and/or exposure to patients and therefore, we may spend several years and incur substantial expense in completing certain trials. Our ability to complete our clinical trials in a timely fashion depends in large part on a number of key factors including protocol design, regulatory and institutional review board approval, availability of clinical study material and the rate of patient enrollment in clinical trials. Patient enrollment is a function of several factors, including the size and location of the patient population, enrollment criteria and competition with other clinical trials for eligible patients. As such, there may be limited availability of patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials. Delays in planned clinical trials can result in increased development costs, delays in regulatory approvals, associated delays in product candidates reaching the market and revisions to existing product labels. In addition, in order to increase the number of patients available for enrollment for our clinical trials, we have and will continue to open clinical sites and enroll patients in a number of new geographic locations where our experience conducting clinical trials is more limited, including Russia, China, India 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 identify and understand the unique regulatory environments of individual countries. If we fail to adequately manage the design, execution and regulatory aspects of our large, complex and regulatory diverse clinical trials, our clinical trials and corresponding regulatory approvals may be delayed or we may fail to gain approval for our product candidates altogether or could lose our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or altogether. If we are unable to market and sell our product candidates or are unable to obtain approvals in the timeframe needed to execute our product strategies, our business and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. Additional information on our clinical trials can be found on our website at (http://www.amgen.com). (This website address is not intended to function as a hyperlink, and the information contained on our website is not intended to be a part of this filing.) Patients may also suffer adverse medical events or side effects in the course of our, our licensees, partners or independent investigators clinical trials of our products or product candidates that may delay the clinical program, require additional or longer trials to gain approval, prohibit regulatory approval of our
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Table of Contentsproduct candidates or additional indications for our currently approved products, or may render the product candidate commercially unfeasible or limit our ability to market existing products in certain therapeutic areas or at all. For example, as a result of observing an increased frequency of cholecystitis, inflammation of the gall bladder, in patients treated with our late-stage product candidate motesanib diphosphate, we delayed our phase 3 trial in first-line non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which was previously expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2006, until the second half of 2007. Clinical trials must 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 these diseases, the duration of time needed to complete certain clinical trials may result in the design of such clinical trials being based on an out of date standard of medical care, limiting the utility and application of such trials. Of course, even if we successfully manage our clinical trials, we may not obtain favorable clinical trial results and may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for new product candidates, product label extensions or maintenance of our current labels on this basis. Further, clinical trials conducted by others, including our licensees, partners or independent investigators, may result in unfavorable clinical trials results that may call into question the safety of our products in off-label or on label uses that may result in label restrictions and/or additional trials. In connection with our efforts to improve our cost structure, we refocused our spending on critical R&D and operational priorities and sought greater efficiencies in how we conduct our business, including optimizing ongoing clinical trials and trial initiation. These efforts will assist in allowing us to provide continued support of key activities including (i) current and future postmarketing studies, including those with respect to our ESA products, Aranesp® and EPOGEN®; (ii) regulatory affairs, safety and compliance functions; (iii) clinical studies to advance our late-stage pipeline; (iv) the advancement of earlier stage compounds and (v) research efforts in the core areas of oncology, inflammation, bone and metabolic disorders. To the extent future sales are negatively affected as a result of additional regulatory and reimbursement developments or other challenges, we may be required to further adjust our R&D investment plans. Such actions could result in delays in obtaining approval or reductions in the number of indications and market potential of our product candidates. We also partner certain portions and/or geographic regions of our pipeline to preserve opportunities that may result in sharing the positive economic results with another party. For example, in the first quarter of 2008 we completed a collaboration with Takeda for up to thirteen clinical molecules from our pipeline. | EXCERPTS ON THIS PAGE:
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