Year: 2018-19

Company: Amgen, Inc.

Liaison(s): Tom Storey, Martha Zambrano

Amgen is a leading biotechnology company and a pioneer of human therapeutics whose success stems from a single mission: to serve patients. Leveraging scientific innovation, Amgen creates solutions to serious diseases with a high-unmet medical need. Their pipeline of medicines is rooted in six therapeutic areas: cardiovascular disease, oncology, bone health, neuroscience, nephrology and inflammation.

A therapeutic focus area for Amgen is osteoporosis, a disease that compromises the bone health of individuals, leading to bone fractures, reduced quality of life and in some cases, death. The high number of undiagnosed patients and outstanding number of osteoporotic fractures (1/3 women and 1/5 men 50+ years old) has led Amgen to explore ways to close this care gap. Historically, secondary intervention programs known as Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) have shown success improving diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis.

As directed by Amgen’s Digital Health and Innovation department, our Team Master’s Project (TMP) team was responsible for evaluating the opportunity and developing the concepts for a technology-enabled FLS program. The team provided a detailed assessment of the existing FLS treatment landscape, developed a service concept inclusive of digital aspects, and performed an economic analysis of the services to be included. The team’s research was ultimately compiled into a business plan, outlining the FLS in its entirety. This project has provided Amgen with the insights to further explore the feasibility of developing a digital FLS service to address the current osteoporosis diagnosis and treatment care gap.