Adam Jackson
AbbVie’s (NYSE:ABBV) stock slid 3% in early trading Friday despite posting positive second-quarter results — with news of an opioid settlement upward of $2 billion biting the biopharmaceutical giant this week. The company announced its financial results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2022.
AbbVie posted $924 million in net earnings, with diluted EPS at 51 cents per share on a GAAP basis. Adjusted diluted EPS was $3.37.
The company also posted $14.6 billion in global net revenues, an increase of 4.5% on a reported basis from the same quarter last year, or 6.1% on an operational basis. AbbVie also said it continues to expect adjusted diluted earnings between $13.78 and $13.98 per share for the full fiscal year.
“We delivered another strong quarter with substantial progress for our new products and indications,” said AbbVie CEO Richard A. Gonzalez. “The momentum of our business, combined with advances across our pipeline continue to support AbbVie’s promising long-term outlook.”
AbbVie Inc. researches and develops biopharmaceutical products. The company owns 59 medical marijuana patents and created the cannabis-based Marinol before selling the rights to Alken Labs for $10 million in 2019. Since then, AbbVie has shifted its focus toward technology and hardware, inking a deal in last year to acquire its Allergan Aesthetics division, which deals with botox.
AbbVie’s Allergan division this week agreed to pay more than $2 billion to resolve its opioid liability with state and local governments, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday — a day after Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA) agreed to pay $4.4 billion to settle its opioid lawsuits. The agreement is part of consolidated litigation in a Cleveland federal court that has produced several other national settlements, implicating other pharmaceutical giants such as Johnson & Johnson.
In its second-quarter earnings release, AbbVie reported spending $2.2 billion on “litigation matters”, which it said “primarily includes a charge related to a potential settlement of litigation involving Allergan’s past sales of opioid products.”
