Discerning between popular growth stocks that have room to run and those that will leave your portfolio in the red isn't an easy task, especially for companies in the biopharma sector. Picking the businesses that have the right mix of reliable earnings and catalysts for growth is key, but it takes more than a drug approval or two for your picks to succeed in the long run.

On that note, there's a pair of pharmaceutical stocks that might fit the bill when it comes to enduring growth, and both have experienced noteworthy and recent catalysts. The catch is that only one of the pair has a plan to supercharge its growth before the end of the decade, whereas the other is mired in troubles that might harm investors despite a recent success.

AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) is a pharmaceutical growth stock par excellence because it will be commercializing new medicines and expanding the prescribable indications of its existing set of medicines at a quick clip throughout the rest of the decade. And at the moment its valuation is appealing. In 2023, it aims to submit nine approval packages to regulators and potentially get the final stamp of approval for eight other programs for which it already submitted the paperwork. That's anticipated to drive top-line growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of up to 9% from 2025 to 2030 after a temporary decline in 2023 and perhaps 2024, stemming from increasing competition from generic medicines for Humira, its highest-earning drug.

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Source Fool.com