AbbVie beats first-quarter expectations, but Humira guidance leaves analysts confused

Ab­b­Vie’s ef­fort to pro­tect Hu­mi­ra’s mar­ket share is get­ting ex­pen­sive.

On Fri­day, the com­pa­ny an­nounced a 40% de­cline in the megablock­buster drug’s US sales for the first quar­ter. While it man­aged to hang on­to the vast ma­jor­i­ty of mar­ket share, Ab­b­Vie did so by of­fer­ing sub­stan­tial dis­counts to com­pete with the biosim­i­lars that have flood­ed the mar­ket.

While the drop in Hu­mi­ra sales — which made up 18.4% of Ab­b­Vie’s world­wide rev­enue in the first quar­ter — was bet­ter than Wall Street an­a­lysts had pro­ject­ed, the com­pa­ny will face far stiffer com­pe­ti­tion this quar­ter.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.