(Bloomberg) -- Amgen Inc. expects revenue to jump as much as 20% this year, as the purchase of Horizon Therapeutics Plc boosts the company while it works to become a major competitor in the weight-loss drug market.

Annual sales will be $32.4 billion to $33.8 billion in 2024, the Thousand Oaks, California-based company said in a statement Tuesday. That’s roughly in line with analysts’ average projection of $32.5 billion. Full-year adjusted earnings will be in the range of $18.90 to $20.30 a share, while the average Street estimate is $19.83.

The near-term outlook was boosted by the $27.8 billion purchase of Horizon, which closed in October. The deal gave Amgen a suite of new rare disease therapies to sell, just as some patents on its other drugs near their expiration. It’s new sales forecast is far higher than the $28.2 billion of revenue it generated last year.

In the long-term, Amgen is focused on breaking into the obesity drug market, now dominated by Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S. Amgen has two experimental weight-loss drugs in early stages of development, and analysts think it has the best chances of any large drugmaker to compete in what’s expected to be an $80 billion market in 2030.

“We want to be a really important player in obesity,” Amgen Chief Financial Officer Peter Griffith said in an interview. “We’re on it, we’re investing in it, we’re backing it up in capital.”

The company also reported fourth-quarter earnings of $4.71 a share on Tuesday, above the average analyst estimate of $4.60. Revenue during the period was $8.2 billion, beating the average Wall Street estimate of $8.12 billion. 

Shares fell less than 1% at 5:26 p.m. in New York. They have gained about 30% over the last 12 months.

“This is an inline-ish quarter and guidance which should be good enough for the street,” David Song, investment partner at Tema ETFs, said in a note. “The focus for the stock is on the key obesity pipeline where timelines appear on track.”

Amgen’s lead obesity drug, dubbed MariTide, is taken less frequently than Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. It also appears to keep weight off even after patients stop taking it, according to a study published Monday. 

In the second half of 2024, Amgen plans to share data from a midstage trial of the drug. The company recently added a second part to the trial to study durable weight loss beyond 52 weeks, according to the statement. It’s also exploring whether MariTide can be taken even less frequently than once a month.

Read More: Amgen’s Weight-Loss Drug Shows Lasting Results in Early Study

A second drug is still in the early phases of development, with initial data expected in the first half of 2024. The drug works via a different mechanism than popular weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound, Amgen said. 

In the fourth quarter, the company’s best-selling osteoporosis drug Prolia, which loses patent protection next year, brought in $1.1 billion. That beat analysts’ estimates of $1.08 billion. 

Enbrel, an arthritis drug that’s facing government price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act, generated $1.02 billion, just below the $1.06 billion Wall Street expected. Amgen said the decline was driven by a lower net selling price and inventory levels.

--With assistance from Angel Adegbesan.

(Updates with analyst commentary in eighth paragraph.)

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