...September 13, 2015 Amgen Whistleblowing Case ACCT 530 Ethical Obligations and Decision Making in Accounting Lisa Moreaux Amgen Inc. is a pharmaceutical company based out of California. In 2009, there were 15 states that filed lawsuits against the company for accusations of participating in Medicaid kickback schemes. In 2007, Amgen’s board of directors discovered a potential problem with the dealings of post-market complaints regarding their drugs. Amgen was out to push the sale of their new drug Aranesp, which was developed to treat amnesia associated with chronic renal failure. They employed Shawn O’Brien to take a deeper look into the company’s process to make sure they were abiding by the Food and Drug Administration federal laws and reporting problems properly after they hit the market. The following report will summarize the ethical issues surrounding the case along. Federal law requires after-market reporting on all new drugs under the FDA drug compliance program; however, Amgen violated both ethical and legal standards. The integrity of the company was jeopardized when they chose to withhold information received regarding adverse effects of the drug. Shawn O’Brien was a senior project manager who was hired to improve the company compliance process with FDA reporting. He became aware of the lack of reporting complaints and took this information to top management and was told to be quite about his findings. When he did not comply, he was later fired....
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...case, written by Bill George and Andrew McLean, discusses the company Amgen, a pharmaceutical company based out of Southern California. The company, under its CEO Kevin Sharer, was experiencing high growth, during 2005, and Kevin was looking at ways to keep his company growing into the future. Some of the things he was looking at was shifting the company from a science based pharmaceutical company to a marketing based one, what risks he would have to take to continue high growth, could his executive team keep up with company growth, and how would his leadership style have to adapt to continue growth. Most of all, he was thinking about who would succeed him as CEO. He had spent seven years understudying the previous CEO before taking the reins and he had to start to think about who would be capable enough to takeover for him and led the company into the future. Personal Takeaways - I enjoyed the quote from Kevin Sharer about MCI, “MCI was a highly political place where you had to be a good knife fighter, which I’m not.” I thought the quote was an interesting and maybe extreme take on office politics - I found it interesting that Kevin went to Amgen because he had no experience in the biotechnology field and he openly admitted that it took him his first five years on the job to really learn the technology that the company was producing. - I was impressed with Kevin’s commitment level to his job at Amgen. He had to completely change his ways in order to fit in. Instead of believing...
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...Case Study 1 - Amgen Evaluate Amgen’s patenting strategy. What are its strengths, what are its weaknesses? Amgen is a multinational biopharmaceutical company, one of the world's largest biotechnology firms in the world. Amgen's first product was its breakthrough with recombinant human erythropoetin (EPO) as a treatment for anemia. It was crucial for the company to do all within its power to protect its intellectual property (IP). For this purpose Amgen's patent strategy included filling for three separate patents which would cover all its bases including the final product, starting material and the process. The first and most important patent the company filed was for the final product, recombinant human EPO. This patent is the strongest way to protect its IP as it prevents competitors producing, using, marketing, selling and importing the final product allowing exclusivity to Amgen. The drawback of this patent is the difficulty to achieve and sustain it. In order to receive a final product patent the company must prove that its product is innovative. If the final product has been described or published previously in any form this can be used as grounds to reject the request for the patent as it is considered prior art. Moreover it can be used to revoke the patent once received. Since EPO is a purified human protein most likely discovered previously in its naturally occurring form it will be very difficult for Amgen to patent it. The second patent that the company filled...
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...In the case of Amgen Inc., Et Al. V. Steve Harris, Et Al., the employee were assigned to two different pension plans. Each plan consisted of the utilization of holdings in the Amgen Common Stock Fund which held a majority of only Amgen common stock. A group of employees pursued a class action lawsuit against the company referencing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) because the stock plummeted causing the loss of funds. The group of employees argued that the Amgen Inc. breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA by allowing the participants to purchase and hold Amgen stock while knowing its price was artificially inflated. While the Amgen Inc. decline all notions and allegations the district court granted the Amgen’s Inc. a...
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...The code of ethics for Amgen is “doing the right thing” and O’brien followed the code of ethics and raised a red flag to their superiors. Amgen was carrying out illegal activities because they were not reporting the issues they were having with their drugs. He was “doing the right thing” yet was terminated after doing so. Amgen’s reaction to O’brien’s doing was contradictive to their code of ethics. A whistleblower is essentially a person working within a company and discovers wrongdoings the company or employees are taking part in. the individual will either report these wrong doings to another individual in the company which is internal whistleblowing, or they will report the wrong doing to someone on the outside of the organization, which is know as external whistleblowing. I believe he did take the right steps since he first alerted a senior executive of the company. He was trying to keep it internal and get things fixed before he went any further which I think would be the correct thing to do. After realizing the issues weren’t being resolved he could have blew the whistle externally with in that four-week period before he was terminated. His job was to improve “compliance processes with high inherent risk to public safety, major criminal and civil liability, or both” for Amgen. From an ethical perspective O’Brien was just doing his job and was doing the right thing especially since safety is a big deal in drug sales. He did the right thing raising a red flag to...
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...Deciding How to Decide The functions of every manager in an organization is inclined on making the decisions on the organization and finding ways on how to interact with the stakeholders. Decision styles normally addresses on how the manager will be effective in terms of performance. The decision style has the strengths and weakness. Through the decision theory, the manager of the company will be able to understand the character of the employees. The Dimensions of Decision Style How the manager will run an organization through the decisions will be based on the experience that he or she has learned in the course of the management. It involves how the manager processes the information. Even though people have different ways of thinking, research has shown that there is a correlation in terms of thinking and processing of the information. The quantity of the information and complexity of the information is among the key factors that leads to disparity in decision making among the individuals. Also, the size and number of alternatives available after screening the information. The complexity and focus on the solution will depend on the number of alternatives available. The size of the information that is available to the manager is what will be used to determine the outcome of the decision. Too much information on a particular subject can lead to confusion. On the other hand, when less data is provided concerning a particular matter can lead to low or inadequate decision since...
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...organization will and will not do to get the numbers. Values along with principles of behavior promote trust, good behavior, fairness and caring. Shawn O’Brien identified concerns about how Amgen reported complaints and problems with drugs already on the market. Kassie Westmoreland found that Amgen overfilled vials of Aranesp. The overfilling of the drug provided doctors with free amounts of the drug which could be given to patients and charged to Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurers. These two examples seem opposite of Amgen’s stated valuing of people, integrity and results. The company and its top management are not following the stated values, which undermines trust in the company. At least with respect to the actions explained in the case, HP does not seem to be walking the talk of what its values statement seems to say about the ethical culture at the company. Unlike Alcoa, the message form management of Amgen is to manage earnings, do whatever it takes to gain business, protect our product even if patients are hurt. Amgen fired the two whistleblower, O’Brien and Westmoreland, rather than report problems to the FDA or to lose sales to a rival company. Amgen acted out of egoism. It might rationalize the action using utilitarianism with the greatest good being profit to Amgen and the means to that end are not important. However, this act utilitarianism thinking flies in the face of rule...
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...Questions for the Roche case Case write-ups due on Wednesday, March 30, at 8:10 pm 1. Why is Roche seeking to acquire the 44% of Genentech it does not own? From Roche’s point of view, what are the advantages of owning 100% of Genentech? What are the risks? (1 pt) Roche already had 56% of shares of Genentech and now it seeks to acquire rest of the 44% shares so as to get the benefits of synergies. The pharmaceutical companies have been unable to introduce new products lately, and their only way to remain profitable is by mergers and acquisitions. Roche also used this method. Acquisition will help the firm compete in the market and thus will help it grow. Advantages of owning 100% of Genentech’s shares: * 1 The merger will lead to formation of the world’s largest biotechnology company. * 2 Value of total benefit from synergies will be $5billion. This will be a result of M&D, manufacturing, development and administrative costs reduction. * 3 Complete ownership will give the company complete access to technology and R&D projects. * 3 It will also give the company access to its cash amounting to $9.5billion, which can also be used to make payment for debt raised for acquisition. * 4 The company can also create a contract allowing it to distribute Genentech’s best selling drugs. Risks of owning 100% of Genentech’s shares: * 1 The acquired company’s minority shareholders are mostly its employees. The company’s culture is like a family environment...
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...1. There are four parts to Amgen’s Code of Ethics: employees should resolve ethical dilemmas by considering the legality of proposed actions, compliance with company policies, Amgen’s values, and an analysis of ethical issues including rights and respect. There were several allegations Shawn O’Brien made against the company that contradict the code of ethics. O’Brien alleged the company violated federal law by under reporting complaints and problems patients were having with Amgen’s drugs. Since this was issue of legality, O’Brien sued because Amgen was not reporting to the Food and Drug Administration the patient’s complaints. O’Brien’s retaliation contradicted the code of ethics because his supervisor took him off the case and ? 2. Whistleblowing is when a person makes allegations to the public or someone in authority about illegal or fraudulent activities. In this case the whistleblower was Shawn O’Brien. Internal whistleblowing is when misconduct is reported within the company. For example, if an employee tells another employee or a superior about misconduct, that is internal. External whistleblowing is the opposite and occurs when someone reports the misconduct to a party that is apart of the company. For example, if employee tells an auditor, government agency, or the police about misconduct, that is external whistleblowing. I don’t think O’Brien too enough steps to report his concerns. He only reported the misconduct internally, but could have easily reported...
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...Forbes Video Lists Video Top-Earning Dead Celebs Most Popular America's Youngest Billionaires Forbes 400 The At a Glance CEO/Chairman of the Board/Director, Phillips 66 Partners LP CEO/Chairman of the Board/Director/President, Phillips 66 Director, Amgen Inc Age: 56 Profile Greg C. Garland became Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer of Phillips 66 on April 30, 2012. Mr. Garland was appointed Senior Vice President, Exploration and Production-Americas for ConocoPhillips in October 2010, having previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC (CPChem) since 2008. Prior to that, he served [...] more Phillips 66 Compensation for 2013 Salary Restricted stock awards All other compensation Option awards Non-equity incentive plan compensation Change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings Total Compensation $1,441,667 $7,276,484 $311,413 $2,658,045 $4,108,750 $4,045,846 $19,842,205 Options Exercised for 2013 Number of securities underlying options exercisable Number of securities underlying options unexercisable 66,077 53,912 Stock Ownership for 2014 Number of shares owned 28,384 Amgen Inc Director Compensation for 2013 Fees earned or paid in cash Stock awards Total Compensation $30,000 $49,901 $79,901 http://www.forbes.com/profile/greg-garland/ 1/4 10/21/2014 Greg Garland - Forbes ConocoPhillips Stock Ownership for 2011 Number...
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...559-1039 | dejuan75@hotmail.com Objective I’m seeking a position as a valued member of your organization that leverages my achievements, skills, energy and passion for customer service. Education New Mexico State University Earned a B.S. degree in Criminal Justice Graduated with a 3.4 GPA Attended N.M.S.U. on an athletic football scholarship. Bilingual speaker (Spanish & English) College of the Canyons After high school I participated in general studies and football. I was successful at earning an athletic scholarship to further my education and to pursue a career in football. Thousand Oaks High School Graduating Class of 2007 – Diploma Graduated with a 3.0 GPA * Experience Parking Attendant, Amgen Newbury Park, CA Valet Parking Attendant Placed by Premier of Los Angeles December 2006 - February 2007 Youth Specialist, Five Acres Society Aid Pasadena, CA August 2012 - August 2015 Everyday basic functions included supervisioning up to 10 clients. These clients range from a variety of emotional and transitional disabilities. My attentiveness was needed in order to ensure safety within my at risk clients. With plenty of experience I have became proficient in filing incident reports and following up on leads. Awards and Acknowledgments Qualifications Summary Proven ability to multitask, and prioritize while maintaining composure. Quick to anticipate needs of superiors. Able to cultivate and maintain valuable relationships with...
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...COUNTRY ANALYSIS REPORT: MEXICO VS U.S.A HEALTHCARE MERCK - DIABETES Group 14 – Campus Santa Fe: Angelica Hidalgo 1461526 Alejandro Meza 1464801 Cinthia Merlos 1462113 Juan José Ibarra 1465263 April 10th, 2012 INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION 2. ECONOMIC VARIABLES 3. POLITICAL VARIABLES 4. SOCIO –CULTURAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES 5. COUNTRY ATTRACTIVENESS SCORE 6. THE DECISION 7. EXHIBITS 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. INTRODUCTION 2. ECONOMIC VARIABLES The total economic impact of diabetes worldwide In the world the economic impact about the diabetes was 376 billion dollar in 2010, this is the 11.6% of the total healthcare budget in the world. This facts give us an idea about how is important to analyze the impact in economies of this disease and we are going to go deeper for the analysis of Mexico and United States of America. MEXICO In Mexico the economic impact due to diabetes cost more than 7 billion dollars in 2011 according to the Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica. And is expected an increase of 15% this year of 2012 this impact is really huge because 50% of this expense was made by families and the other 50% was made by government in Latin America Mexico is the country...
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...favorable upward trends. It is also worthy to point out that the partnership has operated with negligible amounts of long term debt in the past 11 years of it operations.The company has also been gradually repurchasing its outstanding common stock shares, indicating the company's confidence in its future performance. The company also displays impressive financial statistics. During the last year of operation, the company reported 30 billion dollars worth of revenue as well as a 54 .23 % return on equity. Based off of my analysis, I believe that ACN is a worthy purchase for any serious investors. Amgen Inc.- NDQ-AMGN BUY Amgen Inc is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company that is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. Amgen has had a steady stream of drug approvals in the past and currently hold an impressive pipeline with 11 drugs in clinical trials as of December 2013. The company's financial information history also demonstrates all the key indicators of an investment grade company. Since 1998, the company has demonstrated a continuous increase in its revenues per share, cash flow per share, earnings per share and book value per share . The company has also...
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...HISTORY OF MANAGEMENT PAPER “Organization Culture and Environment” Innovat Rachmana 15311167 Management IP Faculty of Economic Islamic University of Indonesia Yogyakarta, 2015 PREFACE Firstly all praise to Allah and peace be upon to our prophet Muhammad SAW. Thank to the abundance of his mercy. Finally I have finished this paper with the title “Organizational Culture and Environment” that hopefully can be useful for those who want to learn about organizational culture and environment and can contribute something for my grades, and to accomplish my task. In the preparation of this assignment there were a lot of obstacles that hampered me to complete this paper and make this paper is far from perfection. But after all, at least I hope this paper can be useful. This paper is made in order to explain to the readers about the meaning of organizational culture and environment, why organizational culture is needed, macro and micro environment, etc May this paper can fulfill the readers’ curiosity and can give a knowledge contribution especially the students in Islamic University of Indonesia. Innovat Rachmana WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE? There seems to be a wide agreement that the meaning of organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in organizations or a system of shared meaning held by the members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. This system of shared meaning is, on closer examination...
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...Five Competitive Forces in the Biotechnology Industry and Its Economics Scenarios Table of Contents Industry Analysis 3 About the Biotechnology Industry 3 The future of Biotech companies is bright 4 Porter's Five Forces 4 Threat of New Entrants 4 Power of Suppliers 4 Power of Buyers 5 Competitive Rivalry 5 Forecast Industry 5 Competitors 6 Economic Scenarios 7 Increased Demand for Money 7 Increase of Money Supply 8 Deflation 9 Price for Biotechnology Products 10 When to Build Inventory? 10 Industry Analysis About the Biotechnology Industry The biotechnology industry uses advances in genetics research to develop products for human diseases and conditions. Biologic drugs and products are more complex than most pharmaceutical drugs. Pharmaceutical drugs are typically produced by chemical synthesis, meaning specific reagents can be processed by chemical reactions to yield the same product every time. In contrast, biologic drugs are made by the genetic engineering of an organism’s cellular mechanisms to create the desired product. Being biologic means that the drugs are manufactured using living organisms rather than by chemical reactions. Biologic drugs are very large, complex proteins. Because of natural variability in living cells, uncontrollable small differences are inevitable in both the biological manufacturing processes and the resulting molecules. The biotechnology industry is a profitable industry; it is worth $200b and is growing...
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