Recombinant erythropoietin (Epogen)
Eritropoyetina recombinante (Epogen)
- Date
- 1983-1989 · confidence high
- Place
- Amgen, Thousand Oaks, California, United States
- Credited to
- Fu-Kuen Lin and Amgen; Kirin (Japan) in partnership
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Lin cloned the human erythropoietin gene in 1983 and it was expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells, so that it no longer depended on patients' urine. The FDA approved Epogen in 1989 for anaemia of renal failure, the first big commercial biopharmaceutical.
Purification of EPO from urine was the work of Miyake, Kung and Goldwasser (Chicago, 1977); the gene was cloned almost simultaneously by Lin (Amgen) and Jacobs (Genetics Institute), and patent litigation with Genetics Institute and Kirin lasted years.
What it led to
- treatment of anaemia in dialysis and cancer
- use in sports doping and detection tests (1990s)
- biosimilars and low-cost erythropoietins (Cuba, India, Korea)