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Amgen Inc., the California-based biotechnology company that makes Enbrel in West Greenwich, paid $50 million for rights to Cytokinetics Inc.'s experimental heart-failure drug.

Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, exercised an option that makes it responsible to develop and sell the drug, CK-1827452, the companies said Tuesday in a statement.

Amgen paid Cytokinetics, based in South San Francisco, California, $75 million in a 2006 collaboration agreement that also includes up to $600 million if the drug meets development and sales milestones.

The heart failure drug is Cytokinetics' leading product candidate. The drug is the first in a new family of medicines designed to treat heart failure by increasing the duration of each contraction of the muscle. That helps pump more blood through the body without increasing the heart rate, a side effect of older medicines.

"We intend to move this molecule forward rapidly into larger and more definitive clinical trials,'' Roger M. Perlmutter, Amgen executive vice president for research, said in the statement.

 Tags  Amgen Cytokinetics West Greenwich RI

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