AbbVie Inc.
CorpDigest
AbbVie Inc.
Company History
Founded 2013 in North Chicago, Illinois
Last reviewed: 2025-07-15 · By Swet Parvadiya
Humira's European patents began expiring in 2018, and competition arrived faster than some had projected.
Richard A. Gonzalez was born and educated in the United States, earning a degree in science from the University of Houston. He joined Abbott Laboratories in 1977 and spent 35 years building expertise across pharmaceutical manufacturing, research operations, and commercial leadership before leading the spin-off that created AbbVie. As AbbVie's founding and continuing CEO, Gonzalez has presided over the company's entire history: the Humira peak, the Pharmacyclics acquisition, the Allergan mega-deal, the biosimilar transition, and the construction of the Skyrizi-Rinvoq platform. Under his leadership, AbbVie's market capitalization grew from approximately $54 billion at spin-off to over $320 billion by mid-2025. Gonzalez has been recognized repeatedly on Fortune's list of most powerful executives in business and has testified before Congress on pharmaceutical pricing policy. His tenure represents one of the longest continuous CEO runs of any large-cap pharmaceutical company in the contemporary era.
On January 1, 2013, AbbVie began trading independently on the NYSE under the ticker ABBV, inheriting Humira, a pharmaceutical research organization, and approximately 22,000 employees from Abbott Laboratories in one of the largest pharmaceutical spin-offs in U.S. History.
AbbVie announced and then withdrew its $54 billion proposed acquisition of Shire PLC following U.S. Treasury regulatory changes that eliminated most of the tax benefits of the inversion structure, resulting in a $1.6 billion break fee payment to Shire and a strategic reassessment of AbbVie's acquisition approach.
AbbVie acquired Pharmacyclics, the co-developer of blood cancer drug Imbruvica (ibrutinib), for approximately $21 billion, securing its share of Imbruvica's global profits and establishing a major oncology revenue stream alongside the immunology business built on Humira.
Humira achieved $16.1 billion in global net revenues in 2016, becoming the world's best-selling drug for the fourth consecutive year and demonstrating the commercial durability of the adalimumab franchise across an expanding range of inflammatory indications.
Biosimilar versions of adalimumab launched across multiple European markets in October 2018, triggering the first significant revenue erosion in Humira's commercial history and providing AbbVie with real-world data on biosimilar penetration dynamics that would inform its U.S. Transition planning.
The FDA approved risankizumab-rzaa (Skyrizi) for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in April 2019, marking the first major new product approval in AbbVie's immunology pipeline since Humira and the beginning of the next-generation immunology platform that would become central to the company's post-Humira strategy.
AbbVie completed the acquisition of Allergan plc in May 2020 for approximately $63 billion in cash and stock, the largest pharmaceutical acquisition of the year, adding Botox, Juvederm, and a global aesthetics portfolio alongside Allergan's prescription pharmaceutical assets in neurology and women's health.
Rinvoq (upadacitinib) received FDA approval expansions for atopic dermatitis and additional indications in 2021, validating AbbVie's investment in the JAK1 selective inhibitor platform despite the FDA's concurrent Black Box warning requirement for the entire JAK inhibitor drug class.
Humira achieved its all-time annual revenue peak of $21.2 billion in global net revenues in 2022, with U.S. Revenues of approximately $17.3 billion representing the final year before biosimilar competition fundamentally altered the drug's commercial trajectory.
Seven Humira biosimilars launched in the U.S. Market in January 2023, triggering significant Humira U.S. Revenue erosion while AbbVie's Skyrizi and Rinvoq revenues grew by over 50 percent combined, demonstrating the feasibility of the immunology franchise transition strategy.
AbbVie completed its $10.1 billion acquisition of ImmunoGen, bringing Elahere for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer into its oncology portfolio, and its $8.7 billion acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics, adding the emraclidine schizophrenia program in Phase 3 development to its neuroscience pipeline.
AbbVie reported fiscal year 2024 net revenues of approximately $56.3 billion, with Skyrizi contributing approximately $10.9 billion and Rinvoq approximately $5.5 billion, confirming that the combined next-generation immunology platform was on track to more than replace Humira's peak revenues by 2027.
AbbVie acquired Pharmacyclics to secure its 50 percent share of Imbruvica (ibrutinib), the first approved BTK inhibitor for chronic lymphocytic leukemia and other B-cell malignancies. The acquisition provided AbbVie with an immediately revenue-generating oncology asset that diversified the company's revenue base away from pure Humira dependence. At $21 billion, the acquisition was the largest pharmaceutical deal of 2015 and demonstrated AbbVie's willingness to pay full prices for proven commercial assets.
AbbVie acquired Allergan to add Botox, Juvederm, and a diversified portfolio of medical aesthetics products that would generate revenue streams structurally independent of pharmaceutical patent cycles. The deal also added Allergan's prescription pharmaceutical assets including Vraylar for schizophrenia and several women's health products. Management framed the acquisition as accelerating AbbVie's revenue diversification while providing near-term accretive earnings given Allergan's existing profitability.
AbbVie acquired ImmunoGen to obtain Elahere (mirvetuximab soravtansine), the first FDA-approved antibody-drug conjugate for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer — a patient population with historically poor outcomes and limited treatment options. The acquisition also brought ImmunoGen's proprietary ADC technology platform, which has potential applications beyond the current approved indication in additional solid tumor cancer types. AbbVie's oncology team had previously focused primarily on hematological malignancies, and the ImmunoGen acquisition represented a deliberate expansion into solid tumor oncology.
AbbVie acquired Cerevel Therapeutics to obtain emraclidine, a selective muscarinic M4 agonist in Phase 3 clinical development for schizophrenia, along with several other neuroscience pipeline assets. Emraclidine's mechanism — targeting M4 receptors rather than dopamine receptors like conventional antipsychotics — offers the potential for antipsychotic efficacy without the weight gain, sedation, and metabolic effects that limit adherence to existing schizophrenia treatments. The acquisition represented AbbVie's largest bet on neuroscience and its clearest statement that it intends to build a major presence in psychiatric and neurological disorders.
AbbVie has continued to pursue smaller bolt-on acquisitions and licensing agreements that supplement its primary pipeline areas without requiring the scale of the Allergan or ImmunoGen transactions. These smaller deals typically involve early-stage assets in immunology, neuroscience, or oncology where AbbVie's commercial and regulatory infrastructure can accelerate development timelines relative to what the originating company could achieve independently.
Abbott spun off AbbVie to separate its high-growth pharmaceutical business (led by Humira, generating $10B+ annually) from its diversified medical devices, diagnostics, and nutrition segments. The separation allowed each company to be valued on its own merits, gave AbbVie's pharmaceutical leadership team greater strategic autonomy, and allowed Abbott to pursue device and nutrition acquisitions without the constraints of managing a patent-cliff exposure from Humira.
Humira (adalimumab) is a biologic drug treating rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, psoriasis, plaque psoriasis, and other inflammatory conditions. When AbbVie was spun off in 2013, Humira was the world's best-selling drug at approximately $10 billion annually. It held that title through 2022, generating cumulative revenues exceeding $200 billion during AbbVie's first decade and funding the R&D that produced successor drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq.
AbbVie's Humira faced biosimilar competition in Europe from October 2018, where patent protection was weaker. In the United States, AbbVie maintained market exclusivity until January 2023 through a portfolio of secondary patents — a strategy that drew congressional scrutiny but preserved over $100 billion in cumulative U.S. Humira revenue. By 2024, biosimilar penetration in the U.S. had captured a meaningful share of the adalimumab market.
AbbVie announced its acquisition of Allergan in June 2019 and completed the $63 billion transaction in May 2020. Allergan brought Botox (cosmetic and therapeutic), Juvederm dermal fillers, CoolSculpting, and a broad central nervous system drug portfolio. The deal was AbbVie's most expensive acquisition and the largest pharmaceutical transaction of 2020, diversifying the company well beyond its immunology roots.
At founding in 2013, AbbVie was nearly a single-drug company — Humira represented over 60% of revenue. By 2024, the portfolio is meaningfully diversified: Skyrizi and Rinvoq (immunology), Botox and Juvederm (aesthetics via Allergan), Imbruvica (oncology via Pharmacyclics), and Venclexta (oncology). This diversification — built entirely through internal R&D and acquisitions — took AbbVie from Humira dependency to a $56B diversified pharmaceutical leader.