AbbVie beats forecasts, as Humira sales continue to grow

US pharma major AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) saw its shares rise 1.92% to $65.87 in mid-morning trading, after the company announced second-quarter 2016 financials, reporting revenue $6.45 billion, up 18% and surpassing analysts’ expectations of $6.2 billion.

Earnings per share leapt 16.7% to $1.26, also beating analysts projected $1.20 per share. Net income rose 17.5% to $1.61 billion, or $0.98 a share, versus $0.83 a year earlier.

Richard Gonzalez, chairman and chief executive of AbbVie, said: "A key element to our long-term sustainable performance is our advancing pipeline and this quarter we saw several regulatory approvals, including Venclexta [venetoclax] and Zinbryta [daclizumab]. We also made progress on a number of clinical development programs and completed the acquisition of Stemcentrx, which adds a promising late-stage asset for solid tumors and brings a target discovery platform to AbbVie's oncology portfolio, further enhancing the robustness of our pipeline."