Amgen believes that clinical practice and treatment guidelines assist in setting appropriate standards for therapeutic management by healthcare professionals.  Consistent with Amgen’s mission to serve patients, we will under some circumstances choose to provide financial support to qualified independent bodies that develop such guidelines.  

Since clinical practice guidelines can directly affect patient care, it is essential that the work of analyzing the medical literature be carried out by not-for-profit, professional organizations of unimpeachable integrity – organizations that strictly pursue unbiased, evidence-based assessment. The legitimacy and independence of these organizations is of paramount importance in our funding decisions.

Amgen’s guiding principles for the support of treatment guidelines are set forth below.

• Independence: To ensure that the guideline-developing bodies remain independent, Amgen will not exert any influence or control over the development of guidelines that it has funded.  Any materials or data provided by Amgen to the guideline-developing bodies must be narrowly tailored and provided only in response to an unsolicited request. Amgen will only provide materials or data to guideline-developing bodies that have already been made public, or that will be published in the very near future.  This practice ensures that patients and practitioners will have access to the same information used by those who developed the treatment guidelines.
• Demonstrated Need: Guideline-developing bodies applying for financial support from Amgen must provide a compelling clinical rationale for the development or revision of the guideline.  We will evaluate these requests using objective criteria related to clinical practice needs, and not on the basis of Amgen’s relationship with the applicant.
• Conflicts of Interest: Amgen requires that requesting organizations have a conflict of interest policy in place.  The requesting organization must take appropriate steps to address any potential conflicts of interest between Amgen and members of the committee that will be developing the guidelines. 

On an annual basis, starting January 31, 2007, Amgen will publicly disclose, and post on the Amgen.com website, a list of all guideline-developing bodies to whom Amgen has provided financial support over the course of the previous year.  As a condition of providing financial support, Amgen requires by contract that guideline-developing bodies publicly disclose that they receive funding from Amgen.