In short: Named alongside AstraZeneca and Vertex as Lebenthal's preference over Lilly (39:35) — "I do like more diverse… pharmaceuticals like AbbVie, like AstraZeneca, like Vertex," since Lilly's question is whether it can diversify beyond GLP-1s.
In short: Lebenthal's long-held healthcare position, reiterated Buy at B of A with the target raised to $282 (from 276). "I've held it for a long time. I really like AbbVie. Mid teens multiple, about a 3% dividend yield, diversified product line. And remember this was a stock that had a very single product. It has migrated away from that with Skyrizi and Rinvoq. There are always competitive threats out here, but AbbVie does a good job… of in-house product development and acquisitions to make sure that they have a diverse pipeline, not a single product single point of failure." Belski names it as one of the three destinations for the market cap that left the traditional vaccine names.
AbbVie is a large drugmaker that used to have one glaring weakness: nearly all its profit came from a single medicine, so a patent expiry or a trial failure would have been catastrophic. It has since built two large replacement products, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, so the risk is spread.
Lebenthal's case is deliberately unexciting — a mid-teens multiple, a roughly 3% dividend, and a management team that is good enough at both in-house research and buying assets to keep refilling the pipeline. His way of putting the standard is that nobody "bats 1000"; what matters is that no single failure can take the company down.
In short: Sechan volunteers it as the third leg of his healthcare position when asked about Gilead and Lilly — "and AbbVie, by the way" — held for the same three reasons he names for the group: consistency of earnings, valuation, and a great pipeline in a sector he thinks is a long-term beneficiary of using technology to speed products to market.
AbbVie is the third healthcare holding Rob Sechan names, volunteered unprompted when he is asked about Gilead and Lilly.
It sits in the same bucket for the same stated reasons: consistent earnings, a valuation that has room, and a strong product pipeline. The unifying view behind all three is that the pharmaceutical majors are long-term beneficiaries of using new technology to bring drugs to market faster — a benefit that shows up in future approvals rather than in this quarter's numbers, which is precisely why the shares were cheap enough to buy.
In short: Growth engines hold. Q2 revenue +10% Y/Y to $17.0B ($230M beat), adjusted EPS $3.65 ($0.04 beat), adjusted operating margin +400 bps to 48.3%. Immunology +15% to $8.8B: Skyrizi +24% to $5.5B and Rinvoq +25% to $2.5B, both ahead of expectations, with management saying Skyrizi's momentum has not slowed since J&J launched its oral psoriasis competitor Icotyde. Humira fell another 36% to $756M and is increasingly irrelevant to the growth story. Neuroscience +20% to $3.2B — Vraylar crossed $1B and Parkinson's treatment Vyalev reached $256M; Botox improved a third consecutive quarter while Juvederm stayed soft and the faster-acting toxin awaits US approval. AbbVie raised its underlying revenue outlook by another $300M but lowered adjusted EPS guidance to $13.87–$14.07, reflecting $0.14 of dilution from the planned $10.9B Apogee Therapeutics acquisition, partly offset by stronger operations. The question: whether Apogee extends immunology dominance into the 2030s without slowing deleveraging or distracting from the Botox recovery. (Recap, not a stance call.)
AbbVie's old blockbuster, Humira, lost patent protection and is shrinking fast (down another 36%). The whole investment question is whether its two replacements grow faster than Humira falls. This quarter they did comfortably — Skyrizi up 24% and Rinvoq up 25%, and notably Skyrizi has not lost momentum even after Johnson & Johnson launched a rival pill. Brain and nervous-system drugs added a second engine, up 20%. The odd detail: AbbVie raised its sales forecast but cut its profit forecast, because it is buying Apogee Therapeutics for $10.9 billion and the deal dilutes near-term earnings. That's a deliberate trade — spending today's profit to extend the immunology franchise into the 2030s. A recap, not a call.
In short: Explicitly not owned — used as the case study for price diverging from fundamentals. "Just look at AbbVie (for clarity, we don't own this company). The price declined all through 2018 because of fear over some of its drugs losing patent protection. In the meantime the Free Cash Flow kept increasing. And over the next few years, the stock caught up and more than doubled." No stance on the shares today.
AbbVie is not owned and no view is offered on it today — it is included purely as a worked example of a share price and a business moving in opposite directions for years at a time.
Through 2018 the stock fell steadily because investors feared its most profitable drugs would lose patent protection and be undercut by copies. Throughout that same period the cash the business actually generated kept rising. Eventually the two reconnected and the shares more than doubled. The lesson Slegers draws is the one he needs for his own book right now: a multi-year gap between a falling price and improving fundamentals is an ordinary market event, not proof that the analysis was wrong.
In short: An HSBC top pick into the prints, and Baruch's #15 name: Skyrizi and Rinvoq have replaced the lost Humira revenue, ~24% revenue growth expected, stock trying to break out (+7% ytd). "I like healthcare quite a bit, outside of tech."
AbbVie is a big pharmaceutical company. The worry for years was that its blockbuster drug Humira would lose patent protection and crater revenue — but Bill Baruch (it's his #15 position, and HSBC just named it a top pick) says two newer drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, have already replaced that lost revenue, with ~24% revenue growth expected. The stock is trying to break out, and he likes healthcare (and Eli Lilly) as a place to be outside of tech.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.