Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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We expect the recent trends to continue through 2023. This will likely result in full year Neulasta sales less than $700 million. Further, we expect less than $750 million in combined product sales for our oncology biosimilars, KANJINTI and MVASI. And finally, we expect product sales of less than $300 million for EPOGEN as we transition through the expiry of our contract with DaVita. For the full year, we’re guiding other revenues to a range of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion. Note that we recognized about $300 million of revenue from our COVID antibody collaboration with Lilly in 2022 that we don’t anticipate repeating in 2023. So we will continue to manage our operating expenses consistent with our historical cost discipline. So even with increasing 2023 sales volumes, declining net selling prices and inflationary pressures on costs, we still project full year non-GAAP operating expenses to be flat versus 2022 as we continue our focus on driving productivity and cost efficiencies across the enterprise.

We project non-GAAP cost of sales to be in the range of 16% to 17% as a percentage of product sales. Recall that we mentioned during our Q3 earnings discussion that tax law changes enacted by Puerto Rico in June 2022 replaced the Puerto Rico Excise Tax, the PRET, in favor of an income tax. This change will increase our income tax expense beginning in 2023 while reducing our cost of sales by roughly an equivalent amount. Note, however, there will be a negative impact in 2023 of approximately $125 million related to the amount of the PRET that is currently capitalized in inventory that will be charged to cost of goods sold in the first half of 2023, with most of the charge recognized in the first quarter without a corresponding tax benefit. We expect non-GAAP R&D expenses in 2023 to increase 3% to 4% year-over-year compared to our 2022 expenses as we advanced a number of the programs Dr. Reese referenced earlier.

This is consistent with our first capital allocation priority to invest in the best innovation and our operating expense discipline provides us the capital to do just that. And for non-GAAP SG&A spend, we expect 2023 amounts as a percentage of product sales to slightly decrease year-over-year, driven by productivity improvements. These all lead to a projected non-GAAP operating margin as a percent of product sales of roughly 50% on a full year basis. We expect non-GAAP other income and expense of approximately $1.4 billion. The expected year-over-year improvement is driven by a change in our accounting for our BeiGene investment we are making in 2023. Beginning in January 2023, we’ll no longer record our share of BeiGene results in other income and expense under the equity method of accounting on our non-GAAP income statement.

We’ll now mark to market our investment with the impact recorded only on our GAAP income statement. We expect a non-GAAP tax rate of 18% to 19%. This rate reflects the new Puerto Rico income tax which as I explained earlier, replaced the PRET beginning in 2023. We expect share repurchases not to exceed $500 million in 2023 and we expect that we will continue to meaningfully increase our dividend. We expect capital expenditures of approximately $925 million in 2023, consistent with our capital allocation priority to invest in our business, including in our new environmentally-friendly facilities in Ohio, North Carolina. And after we complete those facilities, we expect our capital expenditures to return to their historical levels. I’d also like to make some specific comments around the first quarter of 2023.

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