Biotechnology giant Amgen has awarded its U.S. media business to Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Mediabrands after a four-month competitive review supported by MediaLink. 

IPG Mediabrands has created a bespoke team to manage media planning and buying for the Thousand Oaks, California-based company’s brand portfolio. 

Omnicom’s Hearts & Science and WPP’s GroupM formerly held the bulk of Amgen’s stateside business. Omnicom and GroupM, as well as Dentsu, are believed to have pitched for the business. Omnicom and GroupM declined to comment, while Dentsu did not return requests for comment. 

“We proved the strength of IPG Mediabrands healthcare expertise, demonstrated our agile approach and showed the capabilities of our most important asset: our people,” Justin Wroe, U.S. CEO of IPG Mediabrands, said in an emailed statement.

Amgen is a significant win for IPG Mediabrands after Amazon moved its massive media business from Initiative to WPP and Omnicom in September. IPG, however, did retain some of the e-commerce giant’s business, including Amazon Web Services. 

Amgen had U.S. measured-media spending of $223 million for the first two quarters of 2024, according to Vivvix, which included paid social data from Pathmatics, up from $158 million in the first half of 2023. The company spent $309 million on U.S. measured media for all of 2023.

The company’s worldwide advertising expenses totaled $647 million in fiscal 2023, $841 million in 2022 and $843 million in 2021, according to its latest annual filing. The U.S. last year accounted for 70% of Amgen’s worldwide total revenue. 

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IPG Mediabrands also houses UM, Kinesso and Mediahub, the last of which picked up Etsy’s media business in August.