Amgen Drug Fails to Aid Heart Recovery in Test

An Amgen Inc. drug that spurs the production of bone marrow cells didn’t help repair cardiac tissue damaged by heart attacks or hasten patient recovery, a study found.

Researchers in Germany used Thousand Oaks-based Amgen’s Neupogen in a technique that in previous studies had improved the cardiac function of heart attack patients. The latest study compared patients who received the drug to those who didn’t. The previous studies didn’t compare treated patients to a control group of untreated subjects.