Health and Healthcare

Why AbbVie Earnings Were Not Enough for Investors

Chris Lange

Published: July 27, 2018 11:20 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 8:17 pm

When AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) released its most recent quarterly report early on Friday, the biopharmaceutical company said that it had $2.00 in earnings per share (EPS) on $8.28 billion in revenue. Consensus estimates had called for $1.97 in EPS on revenue of $8.21 billion. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $1.42 and $6.94 billion in revenue.

During the latest quarter, global Humira sales increased 10.0% on a reported basis, or 8.2% operationally, excluding a 1.8% favorable impact from foreign exchange. In the United States, Humira sales grew 10.0% in the quarter. Internationally, Humira sales grew 4.4%, excluding a 5.4% favorable impact from foreign exchange.

At the same time, global Imbruvica net revenues were $850 million, with U.S. sales of $693 million and international profit sharing of $157 million for the quarter, reflecting growth of 35.6%.

Separately, second-quarter global HCV net revenues were $973 million.

Looking ahead to the 2018 full year, the company expects to see EPS in the range of $7.76 to $7.86. The consensus estimates call for $7.81 in EPS and $32.89 billion in revenue for the year.

Richard A. Gonzalez, board chair and chief executive of AbbVie, commented:

We are extremely pleased with the strong momentum of our business in the quarter and progress year-to-date. We’ve driven strong commercial, operational and R&D execution, resulting in top- and bottom-line results once again ahead of our expectations. This outstanding performance was driven by growth from several assets across our portfolio, including significant contributions from HUMIRA, IMBRUVICA, and MAVYRET. Based on our performance in the first half of the year and the tremendous confidence we have in our business, we are raising our full year 2018 EPS guidance for the third time.

Shares of AbbVie were last seen down more than 4% at $89.97 Friday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $112.38 and a 52-week trading range of $69.38 to $125.86.