AbbVie

In Q3 2025, Humira sales fell to $993 million—a 55% decline and the first quarter since 2007 under $1 billion—marking the definitive end of the Humira era. Yet total immunology portfolio revenue hit $7.885 billion, up 11.9%, as Skyrizi ($4.708 billion) and Rinvoq ($2.184 billion) together generated $6.9 billion. This exceeds Humira's all-time peak quarter of $5.6 billion in Q4 2022 before U.S. exclusivity lapsed. AbbVie accomplished what most pharmaceutical companies fail: apical dominance removal. When the dominant growth point dies—whether a tree's main trunk or a blockbuster drug losing exclusivity—most organisms wither. AbbVie instead redirected metabolic resources to lateral branches, which now outgrow the original structure.

The mechanism resembles strangler figs replacing host trees. Skyrizi and Rinvoq spent years growing in Humira's shadow, nourished by the parent molecule's cash flows. As biosimilar competition strangled Humira's U.S. sales (down from $21.2 billion in 2022 to $8.993 billion in 2024), the successors absorbed its niche. AbbVie now projects combined 2027 revenues exceeding $31 billion: Skyrizi over $20 billion, Rinvoq over $11 billion. For fiscal 2025, the company raised revenue guidance to $60.9 billion—the third consecutive quarterly increase—and expects high single-digit compound annual growth through 2029. CEO Richard Gonzalez noted 2025 will see revenues "exceed their previous peak in just the second full year following the U.S. Humira loss of exclusivity," a metabolic recovery rate few pharmaceutical transitions achieve.

This succession depended on ecological niche differentiation. Skyrizi (risankizumab) targets IL-23, treating psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and Crohn's disease. Rinvoq (upadacitinib) inhibits JAK enzymes, with nine approved indications across rheumatology, gastroenterology, and dermatology. IL-23 penetration in ulcerative colitis jumped from 5% to 40% market share in one year—adaptive radiation into newly accessible therapeutic space. AbbVie spent $8.31 billion on R&D in 2024 (22.47% of revenue) and acquired Nimble Therapeutics (oral IL-23R inhibitor) and ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion (antibody-drug conjugates), extending resource partitioning into next-generation modalities. The post-Humira transition validates a biological principle: organisms that cultivate succession species before catastrophe survive; those that wait for the crisis to force adaptation usually perish.