For the past decade, the world’s biggest biotechnology company has faced what I have come to call the Amgen conundrum.

The company’s revenue and profits keep rising, along with new ways of delivering its core drugs Epogen and Aranesp. But big one ingredient has been missing — a rising share price.

After a spectacular rise for nearly 15 years beginning in the mid-1980s, since 1999 Amgen has largely been stuck in a trading range of $50 to $85 per share, recently trading near the bottom of the range.

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