2024-02-02 07:46:28 ET
Pharmaceuticals company AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) reported its Q4 and full year financial results for 2023 this afternoon.
The American medical R&D powerhouse had some setbacks in the year, including disappointing profits from their drug Humira, which lost significant market share to generic knockoffs in both the US and abroad in 2023.
Full year results
The company reported net revenues of $54.318 billion, 6.4 percent less YoY than 2022, and diluted EPS of $2.72 for the full year on a GAAP basis, a staggering decrease of 59 Percent, and an adjusted diluted EPS of $11.11 for the year.
Q4 results
Unfortunately, Q4 didn’t fare much better. Fourth quarter revenues were at $14.3 billion, down 5.4 percent, while its diluted EPS was a mere $0.46, representing a decrease of 66 percent.
In comparison: Q3 results
This was an improvement on the company’s previous results. In October 2023, for Q3, the company reported net revenues were $13.927 billion, a decrease of 6 percent. Net revenues from the immunology portfolio (including Humira) totalled $6.783 billion, a decrease of 11.3 percent.
Its Q3 diluted EPS was $1.00 on a GAAP Basis, representing a disappointing 55 percent decrease YoY. However, both its oncology and neuroscience portfolios increased by more than 20 percent each.
For Q3, the company’s selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses were 24.2 percent of net revenues. The adjusted SG&A expense was 23.9 percent of net revenues. On a GAAP basis, AbbVie’s operating margin in the third quarter was 16.4 percent and the adjusted operating margin was 46.7 percent.
In line with expectations
This was in line with expectations from the markets, which expected a drop in both earnings and EPS for the company, both in Q4 and year-on-year (YoY) in 2023.
Broadly speaking, most analysts seemed to be expecting the company to report revenues around $13 to $14 billion for Q4 and an EPS significantly lower than Q3. However, it is worth mentioning that AbbVie frequently give better-than-expected EPS, with Q3’s EPS of $2.95 roughly 10c higher than markets were expecting.
Notable developments
AbbVie ended off the 2023 year with a bang, announcing on December 6th that it was acquiring biotechnology and pharmaceuticals company Cerevel for $8.7 billion in order to strengthen its neuroscience offering.
Almost immediately afterwards, it then announced it would also be acquiring ImmunoGen for more than $10 billion as its latest acquisition in the spending spree that was 2023 for AbbVie.
It’s not over yet
Investors in AbbVie may need to play the long game if they want to see a turnaround from the company. The company’s CEO and chairman Richard Gonzalez had this to say at the release of the results:
2023 was another outstanding year, marked by strong operational execution and significant overperformance from our non-Humira growth platform. During the year we meaningfully increased R&D investment and bolstered our pipeline with the proposed ImmunoGen and Cerevel Therapeutics acquisitions,” said Richard A. Gonzalez, chairman and chief executive officer, AbbVie. “2024 is an exciting year for AbbVie, as we are well positioned to fully absorb Humira erosion and achieve modest operational revenue growth, followed by a return to robust growth in 2025 and a high single-digit CAGR through the end of the decade.”
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