For the third straight quarter, AbbVie has jacked up its revenue forecast for 2025. The Illinois drugmaker has raised its guidance by $400 million, now expecting sales to reach $60.9 billion.
The estimate is $1.9 billion higher than AbbVie's projection from the start of the year, another indication that the company continues to be surprised by the performance of immunology stalwarts Skyrizi and Rinvoq and that it has rebounded from the 2023 loss of patent protection in the United States for Humira, the first drug ever to generate more than $20 billion in annual sales.
“Clearly, the momentum is there,” AbbVie CEO Rob Michael said on a Friday conference call. “We’ve beaten and raised in every quarter in 2025.”
The new forecast reflects expectations that Skyrizi sales will reach $17.3 billion in 2025, which is a $200 million increase from AbbVie's previous estimate based on the drug's market share gains in psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), chief financial officer Scott Reents said.
In the third quarter, Skyrizi sales reached $4.7 billion, up 47% year-over-year, while Rinvoq pulled in $2.2 billion for a 35% boost. The $6.9 billion the duo generated in Q3 far exceeds the most ever racked up by Humira in a single quarter, which was $5.6 billion in Q4 of 2022 before its exclusivity lapsed.
As challengers come at Skyrizi with advancements—such as Johnson & Johnson’s FDA expansion last month for Tremfya in ulcerative colitis—there remains much room for growth because of the rapid expansion in the use of drugs in the class, AbbVie’s chief commercial officer Jeff Stewart explained.
“We know that Tremfya is going to gain some market share,” Stewart said. “But what’s actually happening is that the category or the class of IL-23s is expanding incredibly rapidly and we view this as a positive. We said before, this is not a zero-sum game.”
Stewart added that a year ago, the market share of IL-23 penetration in ulcerative colitis was 5%. It’s now close to 40%.
“This is a dramatic change in the adoption of the IL-23s,” Stewart added. “It’s just not a Skyrizi story. AbbVie has uniquely a one-two punch in this market. We got Skyrizi and Rinvoq.”
Investors have been taking note of AbbVie's momentum. According to GlobalData on Friday, AbbVie posted a 25% increase in its market cap in the third quarter, which exceeded that of any other company among the top 15 in the biopharma industry. The company’s market cap did take a hit earlier this month, however, when it revealed a $2.7 billion hit tied to acquired in-process research and development (IPR&D) expenses and milestones.
Still, the company's third-quarter results evidently left something to be desired, as shares slipped by about 4% by midday.
Overall, in the third quarter, AbbVie’s revenues came in at $15.78 billion, a 9% year-over-year increase, topping consensus by $200 million.
Michael also pointed to strong sales in the company’s neuroscience portfolio. While dropping its annual sales estimate on cosmetic Botox by $200 million, AbbVie also increased its sales projection of its neuroscience products by $200 million, spread across gains for antipsychotic treatment Vraylar, new Parkinson’s disease drug Vyalev, and Botox’s therapeutic indications.
Humira sales fell to $993 million, a 55% decline, marking the first time since 2007 that its quarterly sales failed to reach $1 billion.