Will Immunology Drugs Continue to Drive AbbVie's Top Line in 2026?

AbbVie ABBV announced encouraging fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results earlier this month that beat expectations. A major portion of the company’s top-line growth came from its newer immunology medicines, Rinvoq and Skyrizi, which not only mitigated the impact of continued erosion in legacy drug Humira but also reaffirmed their role as AbbVie’s key growth drivers.

Skyrizi and Rinvoq together generated combined revenues of about $26 billion, exceeding expectations and representing year-over-year growth of more than 40%. While Skyrizi sales rose 50% year over year on an operational basis to $17.56 billion, Rinvoq sales added $8.30 billion, up 39%. These gains were driven by strong volume growth and continued market share gains across all approved indications, particularly in the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) space, which includes ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD).

Across other indications, Skyrizi continues to gain share in key psoriasis markets, while Rinvoq commands a leading mid-teens in-play patient share in rheumatoid arthritis, covering all lines of therapy in the United States.

On the back of this robust commercial performance, AbbVie projects overall sales to increase at a high single-digit revenue CAGR through 2029. The company expects combined sales of Skyrizi and Rinvoq to grow by more than 20% year over year in 2026, with Skyrizi forecast to generate approximately $21.5 billion and Rinvoq around $10.1 billion. AbbVie expects these two drugs to generate more than $31 billion in sales in 2026 — about $0.5 billion above its long-term 2027 guidance of $31 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 growth. Rinvoq could secure approval for two indications — vitiligo and alopecia areata in 2026. In addition, phase III data with Rinvoq in hidradenitis suppurativa and systemic lupus erythematosus are expected in 2026. AbbVie believes that the next wave of potential approvals in Rinvoq could add roughly $2 billion to peak-year sales for the product.

Despite generic erosion, AbbVie expects to record about $2.9 billion from Humira sales this year.

ABBV’s Competition in the Immunology Space

The targeted market is highly competitive. A key player in this field is Johnson & Johnson JNJ, which markets two blockbuster drugs — Stelara and Tremfya. Both of these J&J medications are approved for multiple immunology indications, including UC and CD. Since Stelara lost U.S. patent exclusivity last year, J&J has shifted its focus to Tremfya to maintain its market position.

Another pharma giant expanding its presence in immunology is Eli Lilly LLY, following the FDA approval of Omvoh for the UC indication in late 2023. Omvoh marked Eli Lilly’s first immunology drug approved in the United States for a type of IBD, playing a key role in expanding its portfolio in this therapeutic area. The LLY drug received FDA approval for the CD indication last year.

ABBV’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of AbbVie have underperformed the industry year to date, as seen in the chart below.

From a valuation standpoint, AbbVie is trading at a discount to the industry. Based on the price/earnings (P/E) ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 15.14 times forward earnings compared with the industry’s average of 18.74. However, the stock is trading above its five-year mean of 13.68.

Estimate revisions for 2026 EPS have trended higher over the past 30 days, while those for 2027 have moved lower over the same period.

AbbVie currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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