The AbbVie strategy, a company at an inflection point  

Since its spin-out from Abbott in 2013, AbbVie’s pipeline strategy has been built around a dominant immunology franchise anchored by Humira. For much of the past decade, that formula worked very well. Humira grew into a successful drug, generating more than $20 billion a year at its peak and giving AbbVie both scale and financial flexibility. 

But that success also came with a structural vulnerability. The long-anticipated Humira patent cliff, materializing in the U.S. with the arrival of biosimilars in 2023, has been the defining constraint shaping AbbVie’s strategy in recent years. AbbVie entered this period with a plan already in motion, built around the rapid expansion of its next-generation immunology drugs and a steady cadence of external deals. 

This article looks at AbbVie’s recent moves as part of a broader pipeline strategy. The question is not simply whether AbbVie can offset Humira’s decline, but whether it can do so without recreating the same concentration risk, and instead turn its immunology base into a durable cash engine along with new pillars in oncology and neuroscience that can stand on their own. 

The foundation: securing the post-Humira cash engine 

AbbVie’s recent pipeline strategy only really makes sense if you start with the constraint it has been managing since 2023, Humira’s U.S. erosion once biosimilars arrived. The first U.S. Humira biosimilar, Amgen’s Amjevita, launched in January 2023, kicking off the competitive phase that AbbVie had spent years preparing for. AbbVie’s own reporting shows how abrupt that shift became in the U.S.; in its full-year 2024 results, the company said U.S. Humira net revenues fell 54.5% year-on-year, with international sales also declining. 

Rather than trying to defend Humira indefinitely, AbbVie has leaned into a transition where Skyrizi and Rinvoq become the immunology growth engine that replaces the gap left behind. AbbVie has been explicit about how large it thinks that engine can get. In January 2025, the company raised its long-term outlook, and said it expects combined Skyrizi and Rinvoq revenue of more than $31 billion in 2027, with Skyrizi projected at more than $20 billion and Rinvoq at more than $11 billion. 

Strategically, it creates post-patent-cliff predictability. A credible immunology base gives AbbVie room to place longer bets elsewhere, in other words, to buy platforms, take clinical risk in oncology or neuroscience, and absorb setbacks without every program being framed as a make-or-break Humira replacement. 

Inside AbbVie’s pipeline: what it has actually been buying

If AbbVie’s immunology transition is the financial base, the past year or so of business development shows how the company is trying to build what comes next. 

The clearest directional signal came in oncology. In February 2024, AbbVie completed its acquisition of ImmunoGen, bringing in Elahere (mirvetuximab soravtansine), an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) approved for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, along with an ADC pipeline meant to extend beyond a single product. AbbVie already had an oncology footprint, but buying ImmunoGen added a ready-made ADC platform and a commercial anchor that can support follow-on development. 

In August 2024, AbbVie closed the Cerevel Therapeutics acquisition, a larger bet on neuroscience. Cerevel’s portfolio included multiple central nervous system (CNS) programs, with AbbVie highlighting emraclidine, a muscarinic M4 PAM, then moving through phase 2 studies for schizophrenia, as a potential flagship. Beyond any single asset, the deal was about expanding AbbVie’s neuroscience engine into psychiatry and movement disorders with late clinical shots. 

Then, in December 2024, AbbVie doubled down on neurodegeneration via the acquisition of Aliada Therapeutics. AbbVie framed the deal around two components: ALIA-1758, an anti-pyroglutamate amyloid-beta antibody Alzheimer candidate, and blood-brain barrier delivery technology designed to increase CNS exposure.  

On the immunology side, AbbVie made a smaller move in January 2025 with the completion of its Nimble Therapeutics acquisition. Nimble brought a preclinical oral peptide IL-23R inhibitor positioned for psoriasis, plus a peptide discovery/screening platform, a bet on oral immunology innovation rather than another injectable biologic. 

Alongside acquisitions, AbbVie has leaned heavily on collaborations. In early 2024, it partnered with Tentarix on conditionally active multispecific biologics in oncology and immunology, structured with upfront option payments and the potential to acquire programs later.  

Through 2025, AbbVie’s business development slowed in headline size, with fewer large acquisitions and a clearer emphasis on selective partnerships and pipeline execution. Rather than announcing another platform-scale buyout, the company focused on advancing assets it had already brought in and layering smaller, option-driven deals on top.  

In oncology, AbbVie continued to expand the clinical footprint of Epkinly (epcoritamab), its CD20×CD3 bispecific antibody partnered with Genmab, with additional data and label expansions in addition to an approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in combination with rituximab and lenalidomide for relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma. 

The company also entered a multi-year collaboration with Neomorph to develop molecular glue degraders in oncology and immunology, and signed an siRNA discovery and development agreement with ADARx Pharmaceuticals, spanning neuroscience, immunology, and oncology. AbbVie secured an option-based licensing deal with Simcere Zaiming for a trispecific multiple myeloma antibody outside China, reinforcing its hematology-oncology pipeline without taking on full early-stage risk. 

Abbvie’s approach to oncology: building a modality stack, not a single franchise 

The ImmunoGen acquisition is the clearest example of AbbVie buying both revenue and an engine. First, it gives AbbVie a commercial wedge in solid tumors, not just a pipeline promise. Second, it effectively imports an internal ADC platform at a time when ADCs have become one of the most contested battlegrounds in oncology. AbbVie may have had oncology assets before, but ImmunoGen gave it a purpose-built ADC footprint rather than a scattered set of programs. 

The timing of full FDA approval is also ideal. Immunogen’s Elahere previously had accelerated approval, and in March 2024, the FDA granted it full regular approval. Buying an ADC company and quickly holding an asset that clears confirmatory review consolidates the move. 

ADCs are only one leg of AbbVie’s oncology build. The company is also positioning itself in bispecific antibodies, particularly in hematologic malignancies, through Epkinly with Genmab. With an FDA approval in 2025, the modality isn’t redundant with ADCs, it’s complementary. Owning both increases AbbVie’s odds of building durable oncology revenue without betting everything on one approach. 

This approach also fits AbbVie’s history. The company’s 2015 acquisition of Pharmacyclics was explicitly framed as creating a leading hematological oncology franchise built around Imbruvica, then a fast-growing BTK inhibitor with a broad clinical program.  

The difference now is that AbbVie is trying to acquire repeatable modalities, not just a single molecule. For instance, ImmunoGen isn’t just Elahere; it’s an ADC platform. It seems AbbVie’s oncology strategy is designed to ensure growth isn’t entirely reliant on one mechanism or one tumor type. 

Alzheimer’s: a persistent challenge and a cautious return 

For AbbVie, Alzheimer’s has been a disease area the company has repeatedly tried to enter, learned from, and, more recently, re-entered with a noticeably different set of assumptions. 

The first clear AbbVie chapter in Alzheimer’s R&D was its anti-tau bet. That strategy made scientific sense as tau pathology tracks more closely with cognitive decline than amyloid, and the field hoped that targeting extracellular tau could slow disease progression. AbbVie’s antibody tilavonemab moved into a phase 2 study in early Alzheimer’s disease, but the results ultimately did not demonstrate efficacy, despite being generally well tolerated.  

AbbVie then explored additional angles, including amyloid-directed approaches. In mid-2024, the company discontinued further development of ABBV-916 as a stand-alone antibody for Alzheimer’s, amid what it described as an “evolving landscape.”  

The company also experienced setbacks through partnered efforts. In late 2024, Alector’s AL002, an AbbVie-partnered program aimed at modulating microglia biology, failed to meet its primary endpoint in a phase 2 Alzheimer’s trial, showing again how unforgiving mid-stage readouts in Alzheimer’s remain. 

AbbVie’s Aliada acquisition in 2024 might be a cautious return on different terms. The headline asset, ALIA-1758, is an early-stage anti-pyroglutamate amyloid-beta antibody, but the strategic hook is Aliada’s blood-brain barrier (BBB) crossing technology, designed to increase drug delivery to the brain. 

Beyond Alzheimer’s: AbbVie’s neuroscience pipeline strategy

AbbVie’s biggest non-Alzheimer’s neuroscience swing in recent years was Cerevel. When the company closed the $8.7 billion deal in August 2024, Cerevel offered multiple clinical shots across psychiatry and neurology. 

AbbVie highlighted emraclidine prominently because it represented a large commercial market and had phase 2 studies designed to set up registration-enabling decisions. In other words, it was the asset that could have made Cerevel feel like a fast neuroscience win, similarly to elahere in oncology. 

However, in January 2025, AbbVie disclosed that emraclidine failed in two phase 2 schizophrenia studies and said it would take an approximately $3.5 billion charge related to the program. AbbVie had paid for a credible path to a psychiatry growth pillar, and the readout removed it from its strategy in one stroke. 

The company still had meaningful CNS exposure through Cerevel’s Parkinson’s candidate tavapadon, and the program delivered positive phase 3 topline readouts, giving AbbVie something tangible to keep the neuroscience pillar alive even after schizophrenia collapsed. In September, AbbVie submitted a new drug application to the FDA for the candidate. 

And AbbVie did add to psychiatry again. In 2025, AbbVie agreed to acquire Gilgamesh for up to $1.2 billion for its depression asset bretisilocin. 

What to watch next in AbbVie’s strategy 

Taken together, AbbVie’s pipeline strategy point to a company trying to move past a blockbuster without recreating the same dependency elsewhere. Immunology provides the cash engine, while oncology and neuroscience are being built through platforms, complementary modalities. 

It’s interesting to note that not every bet has worked, but AbbVie has responded effectively as the handling of Alzheimer’s setbacks, and the course correction after emraclidine demonstrate. At the same time, AbbVie has not retreated into its comfort zone as it continues to place capital behind differentiated oncology modalities and selectively rebuilds its neuroscience exposure. 

Looking into 2026, the company has lined up multiple regulatory and clinical catalysts, including ongoing label expansion readouts for Rinvoq across indications such as hidradenitis suppurativa, vitiligo and systemic lupus. In neuroscience, AbbVie’s Parkinson’s candidate tavapadon has moved into regulatory review following positive phase 3 topline results, with the potential for an FDA decision that would mark a rare neurodegenerative approval for the company. On the oncology front, progress with additional ADC candidates such as pivekimab sunirine (PVEK), currently under FDA review for rare blood cancers, could broaden AbbVie’s commercial footprint beyond Elahere.