What Changed In Amgen’s Story?

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Amgen (AMGN) stock trades at 27.1 times earnings, against 23.0 for the S&P 500. Shareholders paying that premium need to know what they are buying, and the narrative on earnings calls has shifted. On the fiscal Q3 2024 call, management highlighted that its rare disease portfolio delivered $1.2 billion of sales in the quarter. By the August 4, 2026 call, management framed the story around six key growth drivers, with rare disease counted as one of them. So what does management talk up now?

Amgen Now Talks Up Six Growth Drivers And MariTide

Management now builds its case around what it calls its six key growth drivers. On the fiscal Q2 2026 call, the company said these six collectively grew 26% from a year earlier and accounted for nearly 70% of second-quarter product sales.

Management also talked up MariTide, an obesity drug in Phase III trials. Amgen aims to establish it as the first monthly or less frequent obesity therapy, and management said the company is already investing to scale manufacturing capacity for the launch of MariTide.

Rare disease is now presented as one of those six drivers rather than on its own. On the fiscal Q2 2026 call, management said the portfolio grew 21% from a year earlier to $1.6 billion. In fiscal Q2 2026, management grouped it with cancer drugs, saying that Amgen is sustaining growth in both rare disease and innovative oncology through additional indications, international expansion and disciplined pricing.

How Big Is Amgen’s Rare Disease Business Now?

In fiscal Q2 2026, management said the rare disease portfolio grew 21% from a year earlier to $1.6 billion, about 16% of Amgen’s revenue for the quarter.

In the same quarter, management said the six drivers made up 70% of sales and collectively grew 26%. Rare disease is itself one of the six drivers. In fiscal Q2 2026 it grew 21%, a little slower than the group’s 26%.

Should Amgen’s New Focus Worry You As A Holder?

Based on the figures, the new focus looks more reassuring than concerning. Amgen’s revenue grew 9.5% from a year earlier in fiscal Q2 2026, and management raised its 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $38.2 billion to $39.4 billion on that call.

The concern sits inside the rare disease portfolio itself. On the fiscal Q1 2026 call, management said the FDA had proposed to withdraw the approval of Tavneos. On September 1, 2026, Britain’s medicines regulator suspended Amgen’s rare-disease drug Tavneos for new patients, saying the main study behind its approval was unreliable. Tavneos is a small part of the portfolio, generating $119 million of sales in fiscal Q1 2026, so the trouble is real but limited.

Sales growth in the rare disease portfolio is the figure to watch when Amgen next reports, expected on or around November 3, 2026.

How To Act On AMGN?

Not necessarily on Amgen alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here are two companies from Amgen’s own industry that have beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, United Therapeutics stock rose 188% and Exelixis stock rose 198%, while Amgen stock rose 145%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.

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