Makes it potentially very vulnerable to the oral RA drugs if they turn out to be successful.
ABT has been saying that potential oral competitors such as Tofacitinib will barely make a dent in the growth curve for Humira, and they may be right. Several new entrants in the autoimmune sector during the past few years haven’t had nearly as much impact on the three big incumbent products as many investors and analysts thought.
On the other hand, ABT’s planned split-up could be construed as showing a lack of confidence in Humira by offloading it to a separate company from the one that will be run by the current inner circle.