Since they were approved four months apart in 2019, AbbVie’s Skyrizi and Rinvoq have been joined at the hip, central to the Illinois drugmaker's hopes that the duo could replace aging immunology superstar Humira, then the world’s best-selling prescription drug.
Seven years later, Skyrizi has proven to be an adequate replacement all by itself. In the second quarter, the IL-23 inhibitor generated sales of $5.55 billion, which were a virtual match for the most ever achieved by Humira in a single quarter. The result was a 24% increase for Skyrizi both sequentially and year over year.
AbbVie has increased its revenue projection for Skyrizi to $21.7 billion for this year, which would top the $21.2 billion high achieved by Humira in 2022, which was its last full year of patent protection in the U.S.
Skyrizi has continued to thrive in the face of formidable immunology competition, particularly from Johnson & Johnson’s rapidly growing Tremfya, which produced sales of $2 billion in the second quarter, which were up 72% year over year.
The newest J&J entrant into the market is highly touted Icotyde, a daily pill for plaque psoriasis which was approved in March of this year. The IL-23 peptide, which was acquired from Protagonist Therapeutics, has drawn a $7.5 billion peak sales projection for the U.S. across all potential indications, according to analysts at Jefferies.
“We’ve not seen a material change in our momentum since the launch of Ico,” AbbVie chief commercial officer Jeffrey Stewart said on a conference call Friday. “The vast majority of Ico share that we see is being sourced from the two other orals in the marketplace, which is pretty similar to what we had expected.”
Those other two orals are Amgen’s Otezla and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu.
Stewart also said that New-to-Brand prescription data shows that both new starts and switching starts to Skyrizi have “actually grown” since the launch of Icotyde. The data show that Skyrizi is attracting four times as many new patients as any other biologic or oral treatment in the indication in the U.S., per the executive.
“Another point that is probably accurate, as we continue to monitor, is there’s still significant headroom in the moderate-to-severe psoriatic space,” Stewart added. “A large percentage of patients in the United States and around the world are still not on an advanced therapy.”
Apart from plaque psoriasis, Skyrizi is also greenlit to treat psoriatic arthritis, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
For its part, Rinvoq’s sales came in at $2.52 billion in the second quarter, good for a 25% year-over-year increase. With Humira adding $756 million, AbbVie’s immunology portfolio produced $8.8 billion in sales, accounting for 52% of the company’s revenue, which totaled $17 billion for the period. The figure was a 10% year-over-year increase and the most generated in a quarter by the company since it split from Abbott in 2013.
With the result, AbbVie increased its revenue projection for the year by $300 million. It was the second time this year that the company has upped its 2026 projection by $300 million.
The new uptick reflects a $100 increase in the company’s estimate for Skyrizi sales. The company expects another $100 million in additional neuroscience revenues sparked by increased sales of antipsychotic Vraylar and therapeutic Botox, both of which are expected to top $4 billion in sales this year. Another $100 million has been tacked onto the company’s projected combined sales of Rinvoq and blood cancer drug Venclexta.