LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Amgen Inc , the world's largest biotechnology company, said Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sharer will retire from that post next May, and be replaced by Bob Bradway, the company's current chief operating officer.
Amgen also raised its quarterly dividend by nearly 30 percent.
The company, which began paying a dividend just last year, announced a first-quarter payment of 36 cents a share to shareholders of record as of February 15, 2012. The previous quarterly dividend payment was 28 cents a share.
Amgen, which recently bought back nearly 10 percent of its outstanding shares, has said it is committed to returning at least 60 percent of its earnings to investors.
Shares of Amgen, which rose 1.7 percent to close at $58.62 in regular trading, were little changed at $58.51 after hours.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley, editing by Bernard Orr)
