AbbVie Rises 8% Since Q4 Earnings: Buy, Hold or Sell the Stock?

AbbVie ABBV announced strong fourth-quarter 2024 results last week, beating estimates for both earnings and sales. While earnings of $2.16 per share declined around 22% year over year, sales rose 6.1% on an operational basis, mainly driven by robust sales of its immunology medicines, Skyrizi and Rinvoq. While sales of Skyrizi rose 57.9% on an operational basis, Rinvoq sales were up 47.1%. AbbVie’s other key drugs, Venclexta and Vraylar, coupled with significant contributions from newer drugs Ubrelvy, Elahere and Qulipta, also pushed top-line growth.AbbVie issued an impressive outlook for 2025. It expects adjusted EPS to be in the range of $12.12-$12.32. Total revenues are expected to be approximately $59 billion, reflecting operational growth of 5.7% despite a roughly 4% negative impact from the Medicare Part D benefit redesign and rapid biosimilar erosion of blockbuster drug Humira’s sales.AbbVie’s stock has risen 8.1% since it released fourth-quarter results.Long-term investors, however, are not focused on a single quarter’s results and their focus is rather on the company’s strong fundamentals.ABBV’s Successful New Drugs — Skyrizi and RinvoqAbbVie lost patent protection for Humira in the United States in January 2023 and in the EU in 2018. Humira's sales are declining due to the loss of exclusivity and biosimilar erosion. However, AbbVie has successfully navigated Humira's loss of exclusivity by launching two other successful new immunology medicines, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which are performing extremely well. Skyrizi and Rinvoq generated combined sales of $17.7 billion in 2024. The drugs are seeing strong performance across all their 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.On the fourth-quarter call, AbbVie raised its 2027 forecast for combined Skyrizi and Rinvoq sales. It now expects to record combined revenues of more than $31 billion, up from the previously issued number of $27 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’ future growth.ABBV Boasts an Attractive PipelineAbbVie has several early/mid-stage pipeline candidates that have blockbuster potential. The company expects several regulatory submissions and approvals and key data readouts in the next 12 months.AbbVie also has an exciting and diverse pipeline of promising new therapies in blood cancers and solid tumors like ABBV-383, a BCMA CD3 bispecific (relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma) and Temab-A (metastatic colorectal cancer). Teliso-V, a promising c-Met ADC is under review in the United States for nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer, with an approval decision expected in first half of 2025.In November, AbbVie gained approval for Vyalev, a transformative therapy for treating advanced Parkinson’s disease. Studies are also ongoing to evaluate new indications for Botox and Juvederm collection of fillers.AbbVie on an Acquisition SpreeAbbVie has been on an acquisition spree in the past couple of years, which is strengthening its pipeline. It has signed several M&A deals in the immunology space, its core area, while also signing some early-stage deals in oncology and neuroscience areas. It has signed more than 20 early-stage deals since the beginning of 2024, including promising technologies and innovative mechanisms that can elevate the standard of care in immunology, oncology and neuroscience.ABBV’s Slowing Aesthetics Sales & Humira ErosionSales of AbbVie’s blockbuster drug Humira are declining due to biosimilar erosion. Humira volume is rapidly eroding compared to other novel mechanisms (including Skyrizi and Rinvoq) with the decline expected to be sharper in 2025 as more plans exclude branded Humira and move to exclusive biosimilar contracts.AbbVie is seeing declining sales of Juvederm fillers in the United States and China due to challenging market conditions. The slowing growth of the U.S. facial injectables market and persistent economic headwinds, which are impacting consumer spending in China, are hurting Juvederm's sales due to its higher price point. Juvederm sales declined 14.6% in 2024.In fact, AbbVie’s global sales of aesthetics portfolio declined 0.6% in 2024. On the fourth-quarter conference call, AbbVie also lowered its aesthetics franchise’s long-term growth guidance.It expects a high single-digit CAGR for this franchise through 2029. This guidance translates to a little more than $7 billion, much lower than the previous expectation of more than $9 billion in 2030.ABBV Stock Price, Valuation and Estimate RevisionAbbVie stock has gained 9.6% in the past year against a decrease of 3.2% for the industry.ABBV Stock Outperforms IndustryImage Source: Zacks Investment ResearchFrom a valuation standpoint, AbbVie is not very cheap. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 15.43 forward earnings, just slightly lower than 16.37 for the industry. The stock is cheaper than that of some other large drugmakers like Eli Lilly LLY and Novo Nordisk NVO but priced much higher than most other large drugmakers. The stock is also trading above its 5-year mean of 11.62.ABBV Stock ValuationImage Source: Zacks Investment ResearchThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings has risen from $12.14 per share to $12.20 per share while that for 2026 has increased from $13.69 to $13.72 per share over the past seven days. ABBV Estimate MovementImage Source: Zacks Investment ResearchStay Invested in ABBV StockAbbVie faces its share of headwinds, such as Humira biosimilar erosion, increasing competitive pressure on cancer drug Imbruvica and slow market growth trends for fillers in the United States and China. It also faced some key pipeline setbacks in 2024.However, AbbVie has faced its biggest challenge — Humira’s patent cliff — quite well and looks well-positioned for continued strong growth in the years ahead. AbbVie saw a rapid return to sales growth in 2024 after revenues declined in 2023 due to Humira loss of exclusivity (LOE), driven by its ex-Humira platform. AbbVie’s ex-Humira drugs rose around 19% (on a reported basis) in 2024, exceeding the company’s internal expectations.Boosted by its new product launches, AbbVie expects to return to robust 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 robust performance from Skyrizi and Rinvoq.AbbVie’s rising estimates, a solid pipeline and the prospect of growth in sales and profits in 2025 are good enough reasons for those who own this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock to stay invested. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.5 Stocks Set to DoubleEach was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2024. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +143.0%, +175.9%, +498.3% and +673.0%.Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO): Free Stock Analysis Report Eli Lilly and Company (LLY): Free Stock Analysis Report AbbVie Inc. (ABBV): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks