Brush­ing back biosims, a con­fi­dent Ab­b­Vie out­lines a block­buster win­ning streak ahead for Hu­mi­ra

While Gilead and Cel­gene were show­ing just how sig­nif­i­cant new pric­ing com­pe­ti­tion can be in de­stroy­ing their fore­cast­ing abil­i­ties, Ab­b­Vie showed up Fri­day morn­ing with a rev­enue pro­jec­tion that un­der­scores just how im­por­tant it is to steer any block­buster ri­val­ries down the road.

In its Q3 re­port the com­pa­ny re­port­ed that it now ex­pects to see Hu­mi­ra sales climb to close to $21 bil­lion in 2020. To put that in some per­spec­tive, CEO Rick Gon­za­lez had fore­cast peak sales at $18 bil­lion by 2020 less than two years ago. That $3 bil­lion in ex­tra sales rep­re­sents the kind of block­buster rev­enue most bio­phar­mas would be hap­py to see from any one of its drugs.

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