AbbVie reports encouraging growth in Q1 2013

AbbVie has announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2013, during which it generated a worldwide sales total of $4.33 billion (2.79 billion pounds).

This was up by 3.7 percent on a year-over-year basis, while its adjusted earnings per share came to $0.68, which exceeded the company's original guidance.

Sales growth was driven primarily by the ongoing success of the key product Humira, which experienced a 16 percent increase in revenues, while the firm was also able to achieve a number of key developmental milestones.

All registrational studies in AbbVie's phase III hepatitis C study programme are now underway, while further phase III studies of drugs such as atrasentan, ABT-199, ABT-719 and elagolix are expected to commence soon.

Richard Gonzalez, chairman and chief executive officer at AbbVie, said: "We advanced our promising pipeline during the first quarter, with continued progress across our mid and late-stage development programmes."

This represented a strong start for AbbVie in its first quarter as an independent business, having split off from former parent company Abbott at the beginning of 2013.