Written by StockNews.com

Amgen, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN) shares plummeted 10% in Friday morning [as of 10AM] trading after the drug maker reported some positive findings about a key cholesterol drug...[which] weren’t as good as many had hoped. Investors sold the stock off in droves as a result, amid fears that health insurers would be reluctant to cover the very expensive treatment.

MarketWatch has some detail on the findings:

Researchers found that Amgen Inc.’s new cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha reduced the risk of deaths, heart attacks and strokes by 20% compared with standard treatment with statin drugs, a benefit that the biotech hopes will persuade health insurers to pay the more than $14,500 yearly list price.

The risk reduction may not prove significant enough, however, to justify is massive cost to consumers and insurers.

Repatha is a new type of cholesterol drug known as PCSK9, which represents an alternative or a supplement to “statins,” the more traditional and much cheaper drugs that includes one of the top-selling drugs of all time, Lipitor. While Repatha was shown to reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, the jury is still out on how effective it is in the longer term at reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The massive Amgen-sponsored trial studied 27,564 patients over a period of over two years.

...Year-to-date, AMGN had gained 16.66% prior to today’s news, versus a 6.29% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

AMGN currently has a StockNews.com POWR Rating of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #1 of 263 stocks in the Biotech category.