What if you bought Amgen in 1990?
US Health · Biotech. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play200.0× · S&P 500 same money: $19,429
$1,000 in Amgen at the start of 1990 would be worth about $200,000 today — 200.0 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Amgen was founded in 1980 and became the first true biotech blockbuster company. Epogen, which treats anaemia by stimulating red blood cells, and Neupogen, which boosts white blood cells during chemotherapy, turned it into a cash machine, and the shares climbed roughly fortyfold through the 1990s into the 2000 biotech bubble. In 2002 it bought Immunex, bringing the arthritis drug Enbrel.
The next decade was much flatter. Around 2007 studies raised safety concerns about high doses of anaemia drugs, regulators added warnings, and the stock fell sharply into 2008. Amgen reorganised, cut costs and turned into a more mature company that returned cash through dividends and buybacks, while adding drugs such as the bone treatment Prolia and the cholesterol drug Repatha. Big acquisitions followed, including Onyx in 2013 and Horizon Therapeutics in 2023. It also became an early mover in biosimilars and joined the obesity-drug race. From 1990, the return is spectacular; from 2000, it is respectable and much less exciting.
The lesson: For every biotech that becomes an Amgen, many vanish, so judging the sector by its famous survivors is a classic case of survivorship bias.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $1.50 | $200,000 | $19,429 | 200.0× |
| 1995 | $7.00 | $42,857 | $14,783 | 42.9× |
| 2000 | $60.00 | $5,000 | $4,626 | 5.0× |
| 2003 | $48.00 | $6,250 | $7,727 | 6.2× |
| 2005 | $64.00 | $4,688 | $5,763 | 4.7× |
| 2007 | $68.00 | $4,412 | $4,789 | 4.4× |
| 2008 | $46.00 | $6,522 | $4,626 | 6.5× |
| 2010 | $57.00 | $5,263 | $6,071 | 5.3× |
| 2012 | $64.00 | $4,688 | $5,312 | 4.7× |
| 2015 | $160 | $1,875 | $3,301 | 1.9× |
| 2018 | $174 | $1,724 | $2,519 | 1.7× |
| 2020 | $240 | $1,250 | $2,092 | 1.2× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 1990, turning $1,000 into $200,000. The S&P 500 from that same year: $19,429.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. Amgen is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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