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By Luke Timmerman

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Amgen Inc., the world's largest biotechnology company, rose the most in six weeks in Nasdaq trading after Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sharer said the company beat its 2007 profit forecast because of spending cuts.

Earnings exceeded the Oct. 24 range of $4.13 to $4.23 a share when certain costs are excluded, Sharer said in a presentation today at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. The company came ``close'' to an earlier projection of $4.30 a share, he said.

Amgen dropped 32 percent in 2007, the worst year in its history, after its top-selling anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen were linked to higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death. The two generated $6.6 billion in sales in 2006, or almost half of revenue. The Thousand Oaks, California-based company cut as many as 2,600 jobs, about 13 percent of its total.

``Amgen has never been through anything of this scale before,'' Sharer said. ``We dealt with the situation effectively, and stabilized our business.''

Amgen rose 94 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $46.33 in composite trading at 4 p.m. New York time. The percentage rise was the most since Nov. 27.

Some of the anemia drug sales declines were offset by a boost from Enbrel, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis co- marketed with Wyeth. Enbrel in 2007 exceeded $3 billion in annual sales for Amgen for the first time, Sharer said. Amgen, when it acquired the drug in 2002, said it would top that mark in 2005.

``This was sort of like getting out of college in a few more years than four,'' Sharer said.

Amgen will report earnings on Jan. 24. The company delayed plans to give a forecast for this year at an investor meeting in New York on Feb. 13, and will wait until an expert panel advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviews the anemia drugs' safety, Sharer said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Luke Timmerman in San Francisco at ltimmerman@bloomberg.net