AbbVie Aims to Lead CNS Market by 2026 with Bold Growth and Strategic Moves

New Leadership, New Ambitions!

On July 31, 2025, during AbbVie’s Q2 earnings call, current President and CEO Robert A. Michael boldly declared: “We look forward to becoming the largest neuroscience (CNS) company in the industry next year!”

Interestingly, AbbVie’s current CEO Robert A. Michael officially took office on July 1, 2024, and on July 1, 2025, he succeeded Richard A. Gonzalez as Chairman. Right after, he set a goal for AbbVie to “turn the ship around” and compete for the top spot in CNS, showing the classic “new leader, three fires” spirit.

So, where does AbbVie’s newfound confidence to challenge for the CNS throne come from?

The CNS Field Blossoms with Promising Growth

Let’s review AbbVie’s new CNS report card

On July 31, AbbVie released its 2025 h2 results. Total revenue for the first half of the year reached $28.766 billion, up 7.4% year-over-year. Neuroscience business hit $4.965 billion, up 20.3% year-over-year. Among them, the blockbuster Botox performed excellently, benefiting from its presence in both CNS and medical aesthetics.

In neuroscience, schizophrenia drug Vraylar achieved $1.665 billion in sales in the first half of the year, continuing its excellent 2024 performance ranking top 3 in the CNS field. This success is mainly due to Vraylar’s approval for schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder depression, and major depressive disorder.

In migraine treatment, Ubrelvy and Qulipta performed strongly, generating sales of $578 million and $460 million respectively. Qulipta’s sales surged 63.6%, possibly thanks to positive phase 3 trial data announced in April last year showing 70% of participants had significantly fewer migraine days. It is expected that Qulipta’s sales will surpass Ubrelvy’s soon.

In Parkinson’s treatment, Duodopa and Vyalev marked a transition from old to new drugs. Duodopa, on the market for over 20 years, saw sales of $193 million, down 15.2%. Vyalev, approved in 2024, posted $161 million in sales and is rapidly growing, making it AbbVie’s fastest growing drug in h2 2025 with growth exceeding 100%. Duodopa requires surgical insertion of a gastric tube and complex daily maintenance, while Vyalev uses a 24-hour continuous subcutaneous infusion via a pump, improving convenience and avoiding complications caused by the short half-life of oral therapies. Vyalev has become AbbVie’s new ace in the Parkinson’s field.

Even so, when people think of AbbVie, they often recall its dominance in autoimmune diseases. The data speaks for itself. In 2025 h2, AbbVie achieved $13.895 billion in sales from just three autoimmune products. Among them, IL-23 monoclonal antibody Skyrizi and JAK1 inhibitor Rinvoq grew rapidly, reaching $7.848 billion (+65.8%) and $3.746 billion (+48.5%) respectively, both surpassing the former “drug king” Humira, together contributing $11.594 billion. At this pace, the autoimmune twin stars Skyrizi and Rinvoq are expected to easily exceed $25 billion in total annual revenue.

However, looking at overall business growth, AbbVie’s CNS segment grew 20.3% year-over-year in h2, significantly higher than the 12.6% growth in autoimmune, becoming a new engine of company growth and aligning with new CEO Robert Michael’s vision for AbbVie.

Spending Where the Money Comes From

The huge returns from the CNS field provide AbbVie with strong “cash power,” enabling it to continuously invest in expanding this area and creating a virtuous cycle between commercial returns and R&D achievements. From a series of external collaborations and acquisitions, AbbVie demonstrates a clear and determined strategic ambition — to sprint toward the “No. 1 CNS company” goal.

Insiders reveal AbbVie is negotiating to acquire private mental health treatment company Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals for about $1 billion. Since May 2024, AbbVie has already reached a $2 billion collaboration deal with Gilgamesh to develop novel neuroplasticity factor drugs for mood disorders and anxiety, avoiding hallucination side effects and requiring no clinic management or supportive care. If this acquisition succeeds, it would be AbbVie’s third CNS company acquisition within less than two years.

Last October, AbbVie spent $1.4 billion in cash to acquire Aliada Therapeutics and its Alzheimer’s disease (AD) project (antibody ALIA-1758), marking a turnaround after repeated setbacks in AD collaborations.

However, another AbbVie acquisition is controversial. At the end of 2023, AbbVie acquired Cerevel Therapeutics for $8.7 billion. But its core product EMPOWER failed to meet primary endpoints in two phase II clinical trials (EMPOWER-1 and EMPOWER-2) for schizophrenia patients, wiping out $30 billion in value overnight. Fortunately, just a month later, AbbVie announced another key pipeline drug from Cerevel, Parkinson’s treatment Tavapadon, showed positive results in the critical phase 3 TEMPO-2 trial, somewhat restoring the company’s reputation. AbbVie is expected to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) for Tavapadon to the FDA in 2025, bringing a new star to the CNS field.

Can AbbVie Become the “CNS King”?

Can the rapid sales growth and strategic expansion in CNS help AbbVie reach the top position? It’s still too early to tell.

As an experienced CNS player, Johnson & Johnson acquired Intra-Cellular for $14.6 billion earlier this year, gaining assets including the marketed drug Caplyta, which reached $680 million in sales in 2024. This move effectively avoids early-stage R&D failures and accelerates commercial value realization.

Leading AD player Biogen follows closely with a near $1 billion deal with RNAi technology company City Therapeutics to combine RNAi engineering with tissue-enhanced delivery technology, developing systemic RNAi therapies prioritized for CNS diseases. Biogen’s Leqembi product is also expected to be approved in August this year, becoming the first Alzheimer’s treatment injectable subcutaneously at home via an auto-injector, with unlimited market potential.

Looking ahead, as companies increase R&D investment and technological innovation in CNS, fierce competition will drive the field toward more efficient and convenient treatments. Whether it’s AbbVie’s rapid rise or ongoing innovation by industry veterans like Johnson & Johnson and Biogen, more hope and possibilities will be brought to patients.

In biopharma, there is no eternal king, only infinite possibilities.