By Siddhi Mahatole and Puyaan Singh
July 31 (Reuters) - AbbVie slightly trimmed its 2026 profit forecast on Friday to account for its planned Apogee Therapeutics acquisition, while topping second-quarter estimates on strong immunology drug sales.
The company agreed in June to buy Apogee for $10.9 billion, its largest buyout in more than five years, to bolster its treatment pipeline for inflammatory diseases like eczema and asthma.
The drugmaker, whose shares fell 2% in morning trading, said the buyout
would reduce full-year earnings by 14 cents per share but performance of its existing businesses would make up for 10 cents of that, bringing the net impact to 4 cents per share.
AbbVie has bet on acquisitions and newer immunology drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq to counter biosimilars eating into demand for Humira, its former top-seller.
"With shares +30% since lows in April, and +18% since the Apogee deal was announced in June, we expect there will be some questioning," Cantor analyst Carter Gould said.
AbbVie posted second-quarter adjusted profit of $3.65 per share on revenue of $16.99 billion. Analysts on average estimated earnings of $3.60 per share on sales of $16.77 billion, according to LSEG data.
Global sales of Humira slumped 36% to $756 million, still trumping an estimate of $732.4 million. Skyrizi sales jumped 24.4% to $5.51 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $5.45 billion. Rinvoq sales soared 24.5% to $2.53 billion, above estimates of $2.48 billion, in the three months ended June 30.
"While the magnitude of Skyrizi and Rinvoq outperformance in the quarter will not fully quell fears of increasing competition, we believe they will continue to perform well and drive strong revenue growth," William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said.
The North Chicago-based company now expects annual adjusted earnings per share of $13.87 to $14.07 on sales of $67.6 billion, compared to its prior view of $13.91 to $14.11 on sales of $67.3 billion.
For the third quarter, it expects adjusted earnings per share of $3.84 to $3.88, compared with estimates of $3.84.
(Reporting by Siddhi Mahatole and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
