Why AbbVie Stock Trounced the Market in 2025

One of the better-quality companies in the pharmaceutical sector, AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) had a phenomenal year in 2025. Bolstered by numerous positive developments, the company maintained its popularity. Satisfied investors pushed the stock's price up by almost 29% across the year, easily topping the benchmark S&P 500 index's 16% gain.

AbbVie had many factors lifting its business, and what's more, these are likely to continue at least supporting the stock price going forward. Here are the major stock-boosting developments for the company in 2025.

The patent cliff wasn't so scary

Going into the year, many investors were concerned that the patent cliff AbbVie experienced with its ultra-popular Humira would be a serious drag on the fundamentals.

Image source: Getty Images.

That didn't happen. The current one-two power punch of its two leading blockbuster drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, more than made up for the Humira fade. Together, the pair notched a hard-to-believe $24 billion in sales across the four quarters it reported during the year, a figure that tops the total revenue line of most pharmaceutical companies on this planet.

Compounding that, AbbVie's immunology segment (which includes Humira, Skyrizi, and Rinvoq) is hardly the company's only source of revenue or growth. For example, it's doing particularly well in neuroscience, with the versatile Vyralar seeing a nearly 7% year-over-year increase in sales to $931 million in the third quarter of 2025 alone.

Wisely, management isn't relying solely on its existing portfolio and legacy pipeline to keep the growth engine humming. It was an active acquirer last year, and kept itself busy signing important collaboration and licensing deals.

In the former category, a notable buy was Capstan Therapeutics, a developer of next-generation autoimmune therapies. In the collaboration and licensing sphere, one of its numerous deals was a partnership agreement with China's Simcere Zaiming centering on the latter's investigational multiple myeloma drug.

Flying higher in the future

AbbVie hasn't yet published its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 figures; however, it's likely the fundamentals will reflect its wins. On average, both the company and analysts tracking it are expecting a more than 8% gain in annual revenue to nearly $61 billion. This mitigates the not-very-worrying (2%) dip in per-share profitability to $9.93 assumed by analysts.

In the collective estimation of those pundits, 2026 will see a better showing, with the top line expanding by almost 10%, and net income dramatically reversing course with a 43% (!) improvement.

Even if AbbVie doesn't quite hit those anticipated double-digit growth rates, it already has an enviable portfolio and a solid strategy to help it expand impressively. For my money, this is one of the best pharmaceutical stocks on the scene, and any investor should consider buying it.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AbbVie. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.