William Blair has upgraded their rating for AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) to ‘Outperform’ and set a $190 price target. While the stock is currently trading at slightly higher multiples than its average for recent years, analysts see the stock as attractive versus peers and cite a clear path for growth in both the near and long term.
With Q4 earnings set to be announced on February 2, the company’s growth platform, headed by Skyrizi and Rinvoq, has been performing well. And despite Humira and Imbruvica erosion, analysts at William Blair point out that Humira is set to have performed better than expected in 2023 and to beat estimates by $750 million. “Given the strong growth outlook for the company’s portfolio ex-Humira, the better-than-expected resilience of Humira to biosimilars thus far, and the increased visibility into the Humira erosion curve in the United States, we would expect shares to outperform over the next 12 months,” analysts wrote in a client note.
In addition, AbbVie offers a dividend yield of 3.8%, which is the highest among domestic pharma companies with top-line growth of over 1%.
The analysts note that as with other global biopharmaceutical companies, there are risks, the most important of these which include “development risk related to the company’s pipeline and commercial risks related to the success of the company’s marketed assets, regulatory risks, and legislative risk such as drug pricing reform in the United States.” Near-term risks include the erosion of Humira revenues following the launch of biosimilars in the U.S. and erosion of Imbruvica and aesthetics revenues due to increased competition.
However, they maintain a positive outlook. “We believe AbbVie has a strong and durable growth profile over the coming years thanks to its strong growth platform, recently augmented by the acquisitions of ImmunoGen and Cerevel. As we round out the first year with biosimilar competition to Humira, we believe the company has managed the erosion well, while supporting its growth platform to drive significant outperformance. While some uncertainty remains as to the shape of the remaining erosion of Humira and Imbruvica, we believe investors now have enough visibility to get comfortable with the strong growth outlook for AbbVie,” analysts added.
ABBV stock is trading at $164 Monday morning, down 0.24% since Friday.