{"id":1879,"date":"2013-05-06T14:44:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T14:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankpunk.com\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2013-05-07T01:41:27","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T01:41:27","slug":"amgen-a-sponsor-we-need-for-a-sport-in-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crankpunk.com\/ja\/2013\/05\/06\/amgen-a-sponsor-we-need-for-a-sport-in-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Amgen: a sponsor we need for a sport in need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

they\u2019ve sponsored the Tour of California since its inception in 2006, and that must be a good thing, right? the sport needs sponsors and here is one willing to provide financial support for an entire race for several years, one that, briefly, looked to be on the edge of challenging the Giro d\u2019Italia as a destination for the world\u2019s top bike road racers.<\/p>\n

\"amgen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

but exactly what does Amgen do?<\/p>\n

well, Amgen is an American-based multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. located in the Conejo Valley, Amgen is the world’s largest independent biotech firm. Epogen and Neupogen (the company’s first products on the market) were the two most successful biopharmaceutical products at the time of their respective releases.<\/p>\n

(gotta love Wikipedia\u2026)<\/p>\n

they also hold \u2013 and you\u2019re going to think, if you aren\u2019t actually aware of this, that I am making this up \u2013 the patent for artificial EPO in the USA.<\/p>\n

let\u2019s hear from Kathleen Sharp of the New York Times, who wrote a great article on Amgen and EPO:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter patenting its artificial EPO [in the late 80s], Amgen formed a partnership with the marketing mavens at Johnson & Johnson and boomed into the world\u2019s largest biotech company.<\/p>\n

\"psssst!<\/a>
psssst! fancy a drug that’ll make you go fast and also make your blood really thick as you lie down and potentially kill ya? well today is your lucky freakin’ day… dude.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBefore long, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson were selling two EPO brands \u2014 Epogen and Procrit. (Those who biked the short races called criteriums joked it was for \u201cpro-crit riders.\u201d) By the \u201990s, in addition to cyclists, runners, skiers and other endurance athletes were injecting the stuff regularly \u2014 and illegally. All they had to do was pay a black-market dealer in Amsterdam or Marseille, France.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t until 1994 that the marketing of these drugs burst into the mainstream. Amgen and Johnson & Johnson began trying to expand the uses of their energy-boosting drugs to include treatment for fatigue, depression and quality-of-life issues. Commercials depicted old, slow-moving people who, after a shot of Procrit, displayed a zest for life, and a young cancer patient, who after an EPO injection happily returned to work.<\/p>\n