42°20′12″N87°50′04″W / 42.33679°N 87.83432°W /42.33679; -87.83432 (Headquarters Site)
 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Biopharmaceutical |
| Founded | April 10, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-04-10) |
| Headquarters | 1 North Waukegan Road,North Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Area served | 170+ countries worldwide |
Key people | |
| Products | |
| Revenue |  US$56.33 billion (2024) |
 US$9.137 billion (2024) | |
| US$4.278 billion (2024) | |
| Total assets | US$135.2 billion (2024) |
| Total equity | US$3.325 billion (2024) |
Number of employees | 55,000 (2024) |
| Website | abbvie |
| Footnotes / references [1] | |
AbbVie Inc. is an Americanpharmaceutical company headquartered inNorth Chicago, Illinois. They have produced drugs to treat a wide range of medical issues.
The company is ranked sixth on thelist of largest biomedical companies by revenue. It is ranked 77th on theFortune 500[2] and 108th on theForbes Global 2000.[3]
The name "AbbVie" is derived from a combination of "Abbott", the name of its former parent company, with "vie", intended as a reference to aLatin root meaning 'life'.[4]
AbbVie was formed in 2012 as acorporate spin-off fromAbbott Laboratories. It became apublic company in January 2013.[5][6][7][8]
In January 2014, the company acquired ImmuVen, a startup incubated at theUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and focused on biotherapeutics to treat cancer, infectious disease, and autoimmune disorders.[9]
In September 2014, AbbVie and Infinity Pharmaceuticals entered into a collaboration to develop and commercializeduvelisib, Infinity'sPI3K inhibitor for the treatment of patients with cancer. On the same day, AbbVie andCalico entered into aR&D collaboration intended to discover, develop and bring to market new therapies for patients withaging-associated diseasess includingneurodegeneration and cancer. California Life Company, operating as Calico, is anAlphabet Inc. subsidiary focused on aging and age-related diseases, and led by formerGenentech chairman and CEO ofArthur D. Levinson and former GenentechEVP andchief medical officerHal V. Barron (who subsequently left the company).[10]
In October 2014, AbbVie ended its efforts to acquireShire, which would have been one of the largest M&A deals of that year and one of the largesttax inversions in history, due to changes in the US tax code by the US Treasury; AbbVie had to pay a $1.6 billion breakup fee.[11]
In May 2015, AbbVie acquiredoncology firmPharmacyclics and its treatment for blood cancers,ibrutinib;AstraZeneca had also been bidding to acquire Pharmacyclics.[12][13][14] The Pharmacyclics name was retained, and it operated as a subsidiary of AbbVie from its previousSunnyvale, California headquarters until the consolidation of AbbVie Bay Area sites in a new building in South San Francisco.[15]
In June 2015, AbbVie and Halozyme Therapeutics entered into a global collaboration and licensing agreement to develop and commercialize products that combine AbbVie's treatments and Halozyme's ENHANZE drug-delivery technology, this was terminated in November 2016.[16]
In February 2016, AbbVie andCambridge, Massachusetts-based Synlogic announced a multi-year R&D collaboration. Synlogic is asynthetic biology company built on research from the labs ofJames Collins and Tim Lu atMIT. As part of the collaboration, AbbVie is getting worldwide rights to Synlogic'sprobiotic-based technology for treatinginflammatory bowel disease, and the research teams will focus onCrohn's disease andulcerative colitis.[17]
In April 2016, the company announced it would acquire Stemcentrx for up to $9.8 billion.[18] A day later, the company announced an expansion of a two and a half-year-old cystic fibrosis deal withGalapagos NV, potentially doubling milestone payments to $600 million.[19][20]
Also in April 2016, the company partnered with theUniversity of Chicago to investigate several areas of oncology: breast, lung, prostate, colorectal and hematological cancers.[21]
Also in April 2016, the company announced it would co-commercialize Argenx's preclinical immunotherapy, ARGX-115. ARGX-115 is a first-in-class immunotherapy targeting GARP (glycoprotein A repetitions predominant), a membrane protein believed to enhance the immunosuppressive effects ofT cells.[22] The company also announced a deal to co-develop/commercialize at least one of CytomX Probody's conjugates againstCD71 (transferrin receptor 1).[23]
In June 2019, AbbVie announced it would acquire Irish-basedAllergan plc for about $63 billion; however the transaction was not structured as atax inversion; AbbVie remained legally domiciled in the U.S. for tax purposes.[24][25] To gain FTC approval, the company divested Allergan's late-stage gastrointestinal candidate brazikumab to AstraZeneca as well as two pancreatic replacement enzymes,Zenpep andViokace, toNestlé.[26][27]
In July 2019, the company announced it would acquire Mavupharma, boosting its cancer drug pipeline.[28][29]
In March 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, AbbVie announced plans to evaluate the Kaletra/Aluvia HIV medicine as possible COVID-19 treatment. The company entered into various partnerships with health authorities in different countries to investigate the efficacy of the medication.[30] However, the first non-blinded, randomized trial found the drug not useful to treat severe COVID-19.[31] The Israeli government announced that it would force AbbVie to license its patents forKaletra, the brand name oflopinavir/ritonavir, a fixed dose combination medication for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS which was also thought to have some applicability to fightingCOVID-19. In response, AbbVie announced that it would cease enforcing its patents on the drug entirely.[32]
In May 2021, Allergan Aesthetics announced the acquisition of Soliton.[33] In June, Abbvie acquired TeneoOne and its lead compound TNB-383B. The compound is aBCMA-targetingimmunotherapeutic for relapsed or refractorymultiple myeloma.[34]
In March 2022, AbbVie acquired Syndesi Therapeutics for up to $1 billion and its portfolio of novel modulators of thesynaptic vesicle protein 2A and lead compound SDI-118.[35][36] In October, the company acquired DJS Antibodies for $225 million, giving it access to an experimental drug for an aggressive lung disease as well as technology to develop certain antibody medicines.[37]
In January 2023, Humira began facing competition frombiosimilars.[38]
In February 2024, AbbVie acquiredImmunoGen for $10.1 billion, aiming to expedite its entry into the ovarian cancer treatment market with ImmunoGen's drugElahere.[39][40]
Also in February 2024, AbbVie and Tentarix Biotherapeutics announced the beginning of a long-term collaboration in the discovery and development of opportunistic, multi-specific biological candidates inoncology andimmunology. AbbVie provides expertise in these areas, and will also provide Tentarix with option advances worth $64 million for two programs, and Tentarix will provide its patented Tentarix Tentacles™platform. AbbVie also received an option to purchase the software in full.[41][42]
In March 2024, the company announced it would acquire Landos Biopharma for over $200 million.[43]
In June 2024, Robert Michael replaced Richard Gonzalez asCEO of AbbVie. Gonzalez became theexecutive chairman.[44]
In August 2024, AbbVie acquired neuroscience drugmakerCerevel Therapeutics for $8.7 billion, in an attempt to expand its drug pipeline.[45][46]
In September 2024, AbbVie filed a lawsuit against BeiGene accusing it of stealingtrade secrets to develop a competing therapy to treat blood and bone marrow cancers related to the growth of "B cells" after BeiGene hired a former longtime senior AbbVie scientist.[47]
In October 2024, AbbVie acquired Aliada Therapeutics for $1.4 billion to expand its neuroscience pipeline.[48]
In January 2025, AbbVie acquired Nimble Therapeutics, a Roche spinout working to develop oral peptide treatments in the autoimmune area, for $200 million.[49][50]
Also in January 2025, AbbVie announced a $1.64 billion partnership with Neomorph to develop new molecular glue degraders for multiple targets across oncology and immunology.[51] In the same month, it announced a $1 billion partnership with Simcere Zaiming to develop an investigational drug candidate for multiple myeloma.[52]
In May 2025, AbbVie entered into a collaboration and license option deal with ADARx Pharmaceuticals to develop a new type of RNA technology for disease areas like neuroscience, immunology and oncology.[53]
The company's major products are: Humira (adalimumab) ($9 billion in 2024 revenues, 16% of total revenues), approved to treatautoimmune diseases includingrheumatoid arthritis,juvenile idiopathic arthritis,psoriatic arthritis,plaque psoriasis,crohn's disease andulcerative colitis and administered via injection; Skyrizi (Risankizumab) ($11.7 billion in 2024 revenues, 21% of total revenues), aninterleukin-23 (IL-23) inhibitor also used to treat autoimmune diseases; Rinvoq (Upadacitinib) ($6.0 billion in 2023 revenues, 11% of total revenues), used to treatarthritis; andBotox ($6.0 billion in 2024 revenues, 11% of total revenues). Its other major products include Imbruvica (Ibrutinib) to treatcancer ($3.3 billion in 2024 revenues), Vraylar (Cariprazine) to treatschizophrenia andbipolar disorder ($3.3 billion in 2024 revenues), Venclexta (Venetoclax) to treatleukemia andlymphoma ($2.6 billion in 2024 revenues), Mavyret (Glecaprevir/pibrentasvir) to treatHepatitis C ($1.3 billion in 2024 revenues), and Epkinly (epcoritamab), a blood-cancer therapy developed in partnership withGenmab ($0.1 billion in 2024 revenues).[1] The company is also committed to product development for other treatments of cancer, neurologic diseases, eye care, andcystic fibrosis.[1]: 34 [54] The company's pipeline also includes drug candidates forParkinson's disease including Vyalev (Foscarbidopa/foslevodopa) and tavapadon.[1]
AbbVie has been accused of using anti-competitive patent thickets to prevent potentially cheaperbiosimilars from entering the market.
AbbVie and Alvotech, filed lawsuits against each other regarding a Humira biosimilar introduced by Alvotech. The lawsuits were was settled out of court in 2022.[56][57][58]
Forest Laboratories, a subsidiary of AbbVie, was accused of using unlawful deals to prevent generic versions of itsAlzheimer's disease drug,Namenda, from entering the market.[59][60]
In 2018, AbbVie agreed to pay $25 million to resolve allegations that it usedkickback schemes to promote its cholesterol drug TriCor (fenofibrate).[61]
In 2020, AbbVie agreed to pay $24 million to resolve allegations that it usedkickback schemes to promote Humira using "nurse ambassadors".[62][63]
A report from theHouse Oversight and Reform Committee found that "AbbVie pursued a variety of tactics to increase drug sales while raising prices for Americans, including exploiting the patent system to extend its market monopoly, abusing orphan drug protections to further block competition, and engaging in anticompetitive pricing practices".[64][65] Pursuant to theInflation Reduction Act, the price ofImbruvica was reduced by 38%, to $9,319 per month, effective in 2026.[66][67]
In June 2021, theUnited States Senate Finance Committee, under ChairRon Wyden (D-OR), began an investigation to determine if the company took advantage of loopholes in theTax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to significantly reduce its tax liability. In a letter to AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, Wyden noted the company suffered a 2020 pretax loss in the US of $4.5 billion and an overseas pretax profit of $7.9 billion the same year. The report, released in July 2022, showed that AbbVie was able to dodge U.S. taxes by registering intellectual property in offshore jurisdictions such as Bermuda. As a result, while AbbVie received 75% of its sales of Humira in the United States, it only reported 1% of that income for U.S. tax purposes.[68][69]
In July 2022 the company agreed to pay up to $2.37 billion to settle U.S. lawsuits against itsAllergan unit over the marketing ofopioidanalgesics. AbbVie denied any wrongdoing.[70]
In 2018, AbbVie suedNHS England in theTechnology and Construction Court claiming that the agency breached procurement rules and had not treated the company fairly when seeking suppliers forhepatitis C treatments.[71] In 2019, a UK court dismissed AbbVie's case against the NHS.[72]
This randomized trial found that lopinavir–ritonavir treatment added to standard supportive care was not associated with clinical improvement or mortality in seriously ill patients with Covid-19 different from that associated with standard care alone.
