Amgen has posted strong growth of 51.3 per cent in net earnings to $1,623 million during the first quarter ended March 2015 from $1,073 million in the corresponding quarter of last year. Its net sales improved by 11.9 per cent to $4,874 million from $4,356 million due to growth in sales of Enbrel, Prolia, Epogen, Sensipar and Xgeva.  EPS improved to $2.13 from $1.42 in the last period.   

Its R&D expenditure declined by 13 per cent to $894 million from $1,027 million due to savings from transformation and process improvement efforts.

"With solid execution in the first quarter, Amgen achieved strong sales and earnings growth and demonstrated substantial progress in achieving our long-term objectives," said Robert A. Bradway, chairman and chief executive officer. "Our continuing success in delivering results gives us the confidence to increase our full year outlook for earnings."

The company repurchased 2.9 million shares of common stock at a total cost of $0.5 billion. It has $3.4 billion remaining under its stock repurchase authorization.

The company projected total revenues in the range of $20.9 billion to $21.3 billion for the full year 2015 and EPS in the range of $9.05 to $9.40.