Perhaps as much as any industry, pharmaceutical makers must innovate to survive and thrive. That's because the same patents which protect a medicine from biosimilar competition eventually expire, often leading to a precipitous decline in sales.

Consider AbbVie's (NYSE: ABBV) crown jewel drug, Humira, which hauled in $21.2 billion in revenue in 2022. But now that it faces competition from the likes of Amgen's biosimilar Amjevita in the U.S., this should prove to be the medicine's peak sales figure.

The good news is that AbbVie knew this day would come and has been preparing. One of its newer, more promising drugs is Rinvoq. Already approved for six indications in the U.S., the medicine could soon be on its way to the seventh. AbbVie recently enrolled patients in a phase 3 clinical trial for treating moderate to severe cases of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease.

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Source Fool.com