The Connection Between Amgen and the Doping Drug EPO

The Connection Between Amgen and the Doping Drug EPO

This is definitely old news, but it’s an interesting time — right after the 60 Minutes interview with Tyler Hamilton — to recall that Amgen Corporation, the sponsor of the Amgen Tour of California, which continues to feature many veterans of the Tour de France, is also the manufacturer of erythropoietin (EPO), a drug designed for the treatment of chronic anemia that is also used in cycling for “doping.”

Will the latest incendiary claims by Tyler Hamilton, Armstrong’s old teammate, cause Amgen Corporation to reconsider it’s sponsorship of the California Tour?

Or was its sponsorship a hedge in the first place against the bad press caused by the unfortunate use of its anemia drug for doping?

Or, is this connection just one of life’s strange and ironic coincidences?

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3 thoughts on “The Connection Between Amgen and the Doping Drug EPO”

  2. It’s interesting — and logical — that a drug designed to combat chronic anemia by promoting a proliferation of red blood cells would also serve as a performance enhancing drug, since the hemoglobin in red blood cells is the transporter of oxygen throughout the body.

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