William Blair initiated research coverage of AbbVie Inc. (ABBV $143.74), a biopharmaceutical company with major franchises in immunology, oncology, neurology, and aesthetics, with a meaningful presence in other areas including eye care and virology.
Analyst Tim Lugo expected a decline in top-line revenues in 2023 and 2024, driven by the loss of exclusivity (LOE) of the company’s lead product Humira, but a return to growth after 2024 with a sustained growth outlook thereafter.
“AbbVie is a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company founded when it spun off from Abbott in 2013,” said Lugo. “Since that time, AbbVie has become a dominant player in the treatment of autoimmune and hematologic oncology diseases, among other therapeutic areas, led by Humira and Imbruvica. Beyond the flagship franchises, AbbVie has numerous early-stage commercial assets, as well as a deep pipeline of late- and early-stage assets. We believe the company has built an impressive portfolio of best-in-class assets that de-risk the impact of Humira’s LOE. While the LOE will have a meaningful impact on top- and bottom-line growth for 2023 and 2024, compounded by increasing competition for Imbruvica, we believe the company’s remaining business will grow to backfill much of the lost Humira revenue and drive a return to top- and bottom-line growth starting in 2025.
“Humira remains a relatively large portion of AbbVie’s overall revenue,” added Lugo. “However, we believe the company’s more recent launches, such as Rinvoq and Skyrizi, both of which have so far exceeded expectations, have a strong growth outlook within existing and new indications and will have continued uptake and positive performance. Combined with strong growth in the company’s existing portfolio, and ongoing launches of several new indications for Skyrizi and Rinvoq, we believe these trials should provide additional visibility into the future growth of AbbVie’s pipeline and help investors gain comfort with the company’s outlook and financial stability beyond Humira.”
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