Amgen's troubles keep compounding; Aranesp studies reveal greater risks

It seems that when it comes to Aranesp, its blockbuster anemia drug, Amgen (AMGN) just can't catch a break, nor for that matter, create one. Recently, Amgen was hit with a double whammy -- a lawsuit and an unfavorable study of the drug. On Tuesday, yet another study confirmed that cancer patients who took anemia drugs were twice as likely to develop blood clots as other patients, while transfusion rates remained the same.

The decade-long study of 56,210 cancer patients conducted by Dr. Dawn L. Hershman and her colleagues at the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York adds to earlier evidence about the risks of anemia drugs, and further suggests that those risks may outweigh the benefits.