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AbbVie Rises 11.5% in a Month: Buy, Hold or Sell the Stock?
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Key Takeaways
AbbVie is replacing Humira with strong launches of Skyrizi and Rinvoq across key indications.
New oncology and neuroscience drugs are adding to growth.
No major LOE events this decade give AbbVie room to invest in R&D and external innovation.
AbbVie’s (ABBV - Free Report) stock has risen 11.5% in the past month, mainly due to its beat-and-raise performance in the second quarter. AbbVie announced its second-quarter results on July 31. It beat estimates for both earnings and sales. Earnings of $2.97 per share rose 12.1% year over year.
Revenues of $15.42 billion rose 6.6% year over year on a reported basis, driven by robust sales of key drugs like Rinvoq, Skyrizi, Venclexta and Vraylar, coupled with significant contributions from newer drugs, namely Ubrelvy, Elahere, Epkinly and Qulipta. Sales of Humira and Imbruvica declined year over year.
AbbVie also raised its revenue and EPS guidance for 2025 for the second time this year, backed by a strong momentum in the first half. The company expects adjusted EPS to be in the range of $11.88-$12.08, up from the previous guidance of $11.67-$11.87. Total revenues are expected to be approximately $60.5 billion, higher than the previous expectation of $59.7 billion.
However, a single quarter’s results are not so important for long-term investors, and the focus should rather be on the company’s strong fundamentals. Let’s understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses to better analyze how to play ABBV stock amid the post-earnings price gain.
ABBV’s Successful New Drugs — Skyrizi and Rinvoq
AbbVie lost patent protection for its blockbuster drug, Humira, in the United States in January 2023 and in the EU in 2018. Humira's sales are declining due to loss of exclusivity (“LOE”) and biosimilar erosion. However, AbbVie has successfully navigated the LOE of Humira by launching two other successful new immunology medicines, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which are performing extremely well, bolstered by approvals in new indications and are expected to support top-line growth in the next few years.
Sales of Skyrizi and Rinvoq have successfully replaced Humira, which once generated more than 50% of its total revenues.
Skyrizi and Rinvoq generated combined sales of $11.6 billion in the first half of 2025. The drugs are seeing strong performance across all approved indications, especially in the popular inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) space, which includes two conditions — ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). Importantly, Skyrizi and Rinvoq have demonstrated compelling head-to-head data against several novel therapies in clinical studies, which have given them a competitive advantage.
Skyrizi sales are now annualizing at almost $18 billion and Rinvoq at over $8 billion. AbbVie expects combined sales of Skyrizi and Rinvoq to be more than $25 billion in 2025 and more than $31 billion by 2027(Skyrizi: more than $20 billion; Rinvoq: more than $11 billion).
Strong immunology market growth, market share gains and momentum from new indications, such as the recent launch of Skyrizi in UC, as well as the potential for five new indications for Rinvoq over the next few years, are expected to drive these drugs’ growth. AbbVie expects to file a regulatory submission for Rinvoq for the alopecia areata indication later this year.
In addition, phase III data with Rinvoq in vitiligo are expected later in 2025, followed by hidradenitis suppurativa and systemic lupus erythematosus Phase III readouts in 2026. AbbVie believes that the next wave of potential approvals for Rinvoq could add roughly $2 billion to peak-year sales for the product.
ABBV’s Growing Oncology Portfolio
AbbVie has built a substantial oncology franchise with Imbruvica and Venclexta. Its oncology segment generated combined revenues of $3.3 billion in the first half of 2025, up 4.2% year over year as higher sales of Venclexta and contributions from new drugs, Elahere and Epkinly, more than offset the decline in Imbruvica sales. Some key oncology drugs approved in the past couple of years are Epkinly and Emrelis. Elahere was added to AbbVie’s oncology portfolio with the February 2024 acquisition of Immunogen.
AbbVie is also strengthening its portfolio of oncology medicines with the addition of antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, which are being considered a disruptive innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. ADCs will allow better treatment of cancer by harnessing the targeting power of antibodies to deliver cytotoxic molecule drugs to tumors. The company now has two ADCs in its commercial portfolio (i.e., Elahere and Emrelis) and two additional ADCs in late-stage development (ABBV-400 and pivekimab sunirine), along with some others in early-stage development.
AbbVie’s neuroscience portfolio is also contributing to top-line growth. Sales of its neuroscience drugs increased 20.3% to almost $5 billion in the first half of 2025, driven by higher sales of Botox Therapeutic, depression drug Vraylar and newer migraine drugs Ubrelvy and Qulipta.
AbbVie on an Acquisition Spree
AbbVie has been on an acquisition spree in the past couple of years to bolster the early-stage pipeline that should drive long-term growth. Particularly, it is signing several M&A deals in the immunology space, its core area, while also signing some early-stage deals in oncology and neuroscience areas. AbbVie has executed more than 30 M&A transactions since the beginning of 2024. A key deal was the April 2025 licensing agreement with Denmark’s Gubra to develop GUB014295 (ABBV-295), a long-acting amylin analog for the treatment of obesity. The deal marked AbbVie’s entry into the obesity space, dominated by Eli Lilly (LLY - Free Report) and Novo Nordisk (NVO - Free Report) . AbbVie plans to invest further in obesity.
AbbVie recently closed the acquisition of privately held biotech Capstan Therapeutics, which will add Capstan’s lead asset, CPTX2309 — a potential first-in-class in vivo tLNP anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy — to its immunology pipeline.
ABBV’s Slowing Aesthetics Sales & Humira Erosion
Sales of AbbVie’s blockbuster drug Humira are declining due to biosimilar erosion. The launch of Humira biosimilars in the United States in 2023 significantly eroded the drug’s sales in 2024, with the decline being sharper in 2025 as more plans excluded branded Humira and moved to exclusive biosimilar contracts. Humira sales declined more than 50% in the first half of 2025. AbbVie expects Humira’s access in the United States to continue to decrease through the second half as more plans select exclusionary formularies for existing patients.
AbbVie is seeing declining sales of Juvederm fillers due to continued macro challenges and weakened consumer sentiment. The slowing growth of the U.S. facial injectables market and persistent economic headwinds, which are impacting consumer spending in some countries, including the United States, are hurting sales of Juvederm due to its higher price point. Juvederm sales declined 22.2% in the first half of 2025.
ABBV Stock Price, Valuation and Estimate Revision
AbbVie’s stock has gained 19.3% so far this year against a decrease of 1.1% for the industry. The stock has also outperformed the sector and the S&P 500 index, as seen in the chart below.
ABBV Stock Outperforms Industry, Sector & S&P 500
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, AbbVie is not very cheap. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 15.31 forward earnings, higher than 14.46 for the industry. The stock is cheaper than some other large drugmakers like Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and J&J, but is priced much higher than most other large drugmakers. The stock is also trading above its five-year mean of 12.68.
ABBV Stock Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings has declined from $12.03 per share to $12.02, while that for 2026 has increased from $14.08 to $14.31 per share over the past 30 days.
ABBV Estimate Movement
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Stay Invested in ABBV Stock
Though AbbVie faces its share of near-term headwinds, the company has faced its biggest challenge — Humira’s patent cliff — quite well and looks well-positioned for continued strong growth in the years ahead. AbbVie is returning to robust revenue growth in 2025, which is just the second year following the U.S. Humira LOE, driven by its ex-Humira platform. Sales of AbbVie’s ex-Humira drugs rose more than 22% (on a reported basis) in the quarter, driven by Skyrizi, Rinvoq and neuroscience drugs.
Boosted by its new product launches, AbbVie expects to return to mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2025 with a high single-digit CAGR through 2029, as the company has no significant LOE events for the rest of this decade. A substantial portion of this growth is expected to be driven by the robust performance of Skyrizi and Rinvoq. With no significant LOEs in this decade, AbbVie enjoys the flexibility to invest more in R&D to continue to acquire external innovation.
Rising stock price and estimates (for 2026), its solid pipeline and the fact that it is entering the second half of the year with substantial momentum are good enough reasons to stay invested in this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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AbbVie Rises 11.5% in a Month: Buy, Hold or Sell the Stock?
Key Takeaways
AbbVie’s (ABBV - Free Report) stock has risen 11.5% in the past month, mainly due to its beat-and-raise performance in the second quarter. AbbVie announced its second-quarter results on July 31. It beat estimates for both earnings and sales. Earnings of $2.97 per share rose 12.1% year over year.
Revenues of $15.42 billion rose 6.6% year over year on a reported basis, driven by robust sales of key drugs like Rinvoq, Skyrizi, Venclexta and Vraylar, coupled with significant contributions from newer drugs, namely Ubrelvy, Elahere, Epkinly and Qulipta. Sales of Humira and Imbruvica declined year over year.
AbbVie also raised its revenue and EPS guidance for 2025 for the second time this year, backed by a strong momentum in the first half. The company expects adjusted EPS to be in the range of $11.88-$12.08, up from the previous guidance of $11.67-$11.87. Total revenues are expected to be approximately $60.5 billion, higher than the previous expectation of $59.7 billion.
However, a single quarter’s results are not so important for long-term investors, and the focus should rather be on the company’s strong fundamentals. Let’s understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses to better analyze how to play ABBV stock amid the post-earnings price gain.
ABBV’s Successful New Drugs — Skyrizi and Rinvoq
AbbVie lost patent protection for its blockbuster drug, Humira, in the United States in January 2023 and in the EU in 2018. Humira's sales are declining due to loss of exclusivity (“LOE”) and biosimilar erosion. However, AbbVie has successfully navigated the LOE of Humira by launching two other successful new immunology medicines, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which are performing extremely well, bolstered by approvals in new indications and are expected to support top-line growth in the next few years.
Sales of Skyrizi and Rinvoq have successfully replaced Humira, which once generated more than 50% of its total revenues.
Skyrizi and Rinvoq generated combined sales of $11.6 billion in the first half of 2025. The drugs are seeing strong performance across all approved indications, especially in the popular inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) space, which includes two conditions — ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). Importantly, Skyrizi and Rinvoq have demonstrated compelling head-to-head data against several novel therapies in clinical studies, which have given them a competitive advantage.
Skyrizi sales are now annualizing at almost $18 billion and Rinvoq at over $8 billion. AbbVie expects combined sales of Skyrizi and Rinvoq to be more than $25 billion in 2025 and more than $31 billion by 2027(Skyrizi: more than $20 billion; Rinvoq: more than $11 billion).
Strong immunology market growth, market share gains and momentum from new indications, such as the recent launch of Skyrizi in UC, as well as the potential for five new indications for Rinvoq over the next few years, are expected to drive these drugs’ growth. AbbVie expects to file a regulatory submission for Rinvoq for the alopecia areata indication later this year.
In addition, phase III data with Rinvoq in vitiligo are expected later in 2025, followed by hidradenitis suppurativa and systemic lupus erythematosus Phase III readouts in 2026. AbbVie believes that the next wave of potential approvals for Rinvoq could add roughly $2 billion to peak-year sales for the product.
ABBV’s Growing Oncology Portfolio
AbbVie has built a substantial oncology franchise with Imbruvica and Venclexta. Its oncology segment generated combined revenues of $3.3 billion in the first half of 2025, up 4.2% year over year as higher sales of Venclexta and contributions from new drugs, Elahere and Epkinly, more than offset the decline in Imbruvica sales. Some key oncology drugs approved in the past couple of years are Epkinly and Emrelis. Elahere was added to AbbVie’s oncology portfolio with the February 2024 acquisition of Immunogen.
AbbVie is also strengthening its portfolio of oncology medicines with the addition of antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, which are being considered a disruptive innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. ADCs will allow better treatment of cancer by harnessing the targeting power of antibodies to deliver cytotoxic molecule drugs to tumors. The company now has two ADCs in its commercial portfolio (i.e., Elahere and Emrelis) and two additional ADCs in late-stage development (ABBV-400 and pivekimab sunirine), along with some others in early-stage development.
AbbVie’s neuroscience portfolio is also contributing to top-line growth. Sales of its neuroscience drugs increased 20.3% to almost $5 billion in the first half of 2025, driven by higher sales of Botox Therapeutic, depression drug Vraylar and newer migraine drugs Ubrelvy and Qulipta.
AbbVie on an Acquisition Spree
AbbVie has been on an acquisition spree in the past couple of years to bolster the early-stage pipeline that should drive long-term growth. Particularly, it is signing several M&A deals in the immunology space, its core area, while also signing some early-stage deals in oncology and neuroscience areas. AbbVie has executed more than 30 M&A transactions since the beginning of 2024. A key deal was the April 2025 licensing agreement with Denmark’s Gubra to develop GUB014295 (ABBV-295), a long-acting amylin analog for the treatment of obesity. The deal marked AbbVie’s entry into the obesity space, dominated by Eli Lilly (LLY - Free Report) and Novo Nordisk (NVO - Free Report) . AbbVie plans to invest further in obesity.
AbbVie recently closed the acquisition of privately held biotech Capstan Therapeutics, which will add Capstan’s lead asset, CPTX2309 — a potential first-in-class in vivo tLNP anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy — to its immunology pipeline.
ABBV’s Slowing Aesthetics Sales & Humira Erosion
Sales of AbbVie’s blockbuster drug Humira are declining due to biosimilar erosion. The launch of Humira biosimilars in the United States in 2023 significantly eroded the drug’s sales in 2024, with the decline being sharper in 2025 as more plans excluded branded Humira and moved to exclusive biosimilar contracts. Humira sales declined more than 50% in the first half of 2025. AbbVie expects Humira’s access in the United States to continue to decrease through the second half as more plans select exclusionary formularies for existing patients.
AbbVie is seeing declining sales of Juvederm fillers due to continued macro challenges and weakened consumer sentiment. The slowing growth of the U.S. facial injectables market and persistent economic headwinds, which are impacting consumer spending in some countries, including the United States, are hurting sales of Juvederm due to its higher price point. Juvederm sales declined 22.2% in the first half of 2025.
ABBV Stock Price, Valuation and Estimate Revision
AbbVie’s stock has gained 19.3% so far this year against a decrease of 1.1% for the industry. The stock has also outperformed the sector and the S&P 500 index, as seen in the chart below.
ABBV Stock Outperforms Industry, Sector & S&P 500
From a valuation standpoint, AbbVie is not very cheap. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 15.31 forward earnings, higher than 14.46 for the industry. The stock is cheaper than some other large drugmakers like Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and J&J, but is priced much higher than most other large drugmakers. The stock is also trading above its five-year mean of 12.68.
ABBV Stock Valuation
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings has declined from $12.03 per share to $12.02, while that for 2026 has increased from $14.08 to $14.31 per share over the past 30 days.
ABBV Estimate Movement
Stay Invested in ABBV Stock
Though AbbVie faces its share of near-term headwinds, the company has faced its biggest challenge — Humira’s patent cliff — quite well and looks well-positioned for continued strong growth in the years ahead. AbbVie is returning to robust revenue growth in 2025, which is just the second year following the U.S. Humira LOE, driven by its ex-Humira platform. Sales of AbbVie’s ex-Humira drugs rose more than 22% (on a reported basis) in the quarter, driven by Skyrizi, Rinvoq and neuroscience drugs.
Boosted by its new product launches, AbbVie expects to return to mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2025 with a high single-digit CAGR through 2029, as the company has no significant LOE events for the rest of this decade. A substantial portion of this growth is expected to be driven by the robust performance of Skyrizi and Rinvoq. With no significant LOEs in this decade, AbbVie enjoys the flexibility to invest more in R&D to continue to acquire external innovation.
Rising stock price and estimates (for 2026), its solid pipeline and the fact that it is entering the second half of the year with substantial momentum are good enough reasons to stay invested in this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.