In 1980, when a charismatic chemist named George Rathmann was recruited by Amgen's founders to be the fledgling company's chief executive officer, biotechnology was an exciting new frontier—but an unproven business. Fortunately, Rathmann had the right combination of scientific expertise and business experience. He remembers being "enthralled" by the possibilities of recombinant DNA, believing that this new technology could lead to wonderful things for patients.

From the beginning, Rathmann had a vision of a company with a mission to restore health and save lives. What he could not have foreseen was that an Amgen therapy would one day help him. In 2003, Rathmann began dialysis treatments. Like many people with kidney disease, he receives EPOGEN® for anemia.

He is visibly moved when he speaks about the impact of EPOGEN®. He says, "For me, it's clearly priceless. My whole health has been improved by it, and I know thousands of people who have been favorably affected.... When we first started going to dialysis centers, trying to see if there was a place for erythropoietin, the people [there] were so sick and tired they could barely move. Without red blood cells, you don't feel warm, you don't feel energized, and it's a dreadful, dreadful thing. So we saw that we had the ability to help hundreds of thousands of people who had almost given up hope."

He adds, "Today, I go into the dialysis center and people ask, 'You had something to do with EPOGEN®?' I say, 'Oh, the company I was with has everything to do with EPOGEN®.' They all know about it. They all know the difference EPOGEN® makes."