Amgen's second quarter came in stronger than Wall Street expected.
Adjusted earnings strip out one-time items, giving a cleaner look at the business's everyday performance. Those numbers convinced Amgen that the rest of the year should be better than planned.
It now expects adjusted profit of $22.30 to $23.50 per share.
Guidance is the company's own promise about the future. When guidance goes up, the company is telling investors to expect more sales and more profit for the whole year, not just for one quarter.
CEO Bob Bradway says the growth came while Amgen kept spending on new science. "These results, including strong earnings and margin performance, were achieved while we increased our investment in innovation, reflecting the sound financial structure of our business."
Amgen is leaning harder on its younger products as the older ones age. The cholesterol medicine Repatha grew 37% from a year earlier, while Evenity, a bone disease treatment, grew 38%.
Get the free Always Be Buying eBook and learn the simple system for building wealth on any income
This matters because older drugs like Prolia are losing patent protection. When that happens, cheaper rivals can enter the market and eat into sales, which is why Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, needs the newer lineup to fill the gap.
The strong growth at Repatha and Evenity is a sign that the new generation is starting to pull its own weight. It also helps explain why the company felt comfortable raising its outlook.
Not every drug in the portfolio is having a clean year. Tavneos brought in $150 million in the quarter, above the almost $130 million analysts expected, but the drug is facing a serious threat.
A major journal retracted the study behind Tavneos, and regulators in the U.S. and Europe have proposed taking it off the market. Amgen disputes the FDA's withdrawal proposal, saying the drug is effective for ANCA-associated vasculitis, an incurable disease with few alternatives.
The sales are real. The regulatory risk is real too, and that tension is something investors will have to watch.
The longer-term story is the pipeline. Wall Street is paying attention to MariTide, Amgen's weight-loss drug, but early evidence suggests it may have more side effects than the treatments from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
There is also a cyber incident to consider. Someone stole patient and proprietary information, Amgen said, though the event is unlikely to have a big effect on financial results.
Wall Street did not overreact to the news.
That muted reaction came after a quarter that beat Wall Street's expectations.
The bottom line: Amgen is making more money than Wall Street expected, and it is promising more later in 2026. The stock already reflects a lot of that optimism, so the real test for investors is whether the newer drugs can keep growing fast enough to balance out the Tavneos fight and the crowded weight-loss market.
Download the free Always Be Buying eBook and start putting your money to work today