Why Has AbbVie Gone Quiet About Humira?
AbbVie (ABBV) has returned 23.3% over the past year, ahead of the S&P 500’s (SPY) 18.5%, and the business behind that return has changed shape. Humira, the drug whose decline management once explained, took one sentence on the July 2026 earnings call. What that sentence no longer contains is the part a holder should look at.
AbbVie Used To Explain Why Humira Was Shrinking
On the third-quarter 2024 call, management was already explaining the mechanics: more Humira molecule volume was moving to other novel mechanisms than it had anticipated. By the first quarter of 2025 the tone had hardened. Global Humira sales of $1.1 billion in that quarter came in 49.5% lower on an operational basis and below the company’s own expectations.
The reasons it gave then were faster share erosion from biosimilar competition and further molecule compression in the US, and it lowered full-year US Humira sales guidance on the same call. While the decline was steep, investors were at least provided with the precise market drivers behind it.
What Is AbbVie Leading With Instead Of Humira?
On the July 2026 call the immunology review ended with a brief, single-sentence update on Humira: $706 million of global sales, down 36.1% on an operational basis, and in line with what management expected. A passing mention of biosimilar competition, no word on Humira guidance, one sentence. The phrase “molecule compression” appears nowhere on that call.
What fills the space is far bigger. Skyrizi sold $5.5 billion in the second quarter of 2026 and Rinvoq more than $2.5 billion, each growing above 20% on an operational basis, and neuroscience beat management’s own forecast again. Management has been adding to the growth side too, closing its acquisition of Apogee Therapeutics in early September 2026 and picking up zumilokibart, a late-stage antibody in development for atopic dermatitis.
You Still Own A Shrinking Humira Base
The quiet is mostly earned. Humira’s decline is slowing, and it now lands where management expected, which is the least dramatic thing a legacy drug can do. Underneath it, revenue over the past twelve months grew 10.4% against a three-year average of 4.9%. AbbVie’s quiet on Humira fits a problem under control, not one that has gone away.
What you lose with the commentary is the forward runway. Humira still contributes about 4% of the nearly $17 billion AbbVie booked in the second quarter of 2026, and that base fell by more than a third on an operational basis—reported accurately, but with nobody projecting the ultimate landing floor out loud.
So the line to watch when AbbVie reports the third quarter of 2026 is a small one: whether Humira’s operational decline is still in line with expectations, or whether management starts explaining it again.
Management, for its part, keeps raising its revenue outlook instead of defending it, lifting full-year guidance by $600 million since the start of 2026. The guidance-driven momentum screen is where you check whether that habit is holding.
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