3 Things AbbVie Inc.'s Management Wants You to Know

In January 2013, healthcare giant Abbott Laboratories made the decision to split itself into two separately traded public companies, keeping its original name and ticker and adding AbbVie to the investable universe.

While investors who held on to either company since the split have benefited, as both companies have outperformed the averages, AbbVie has really been a home-run investment and has more than doubled the S&P 500's return over that time period.

On AbbVie's most recent quarterly investor conference call, CEO Rick Gonzalez had a lot of great information to share with investors. Here are three takeaways from the call that are worth knowing.

1. Pharmacyclics will be accretive by 2017In March 2015, AbbVie made a huge $21 billion offer to acquire biopharmaceutical companyPharmacyclicsin an effort to expand its presence in the oncology market and in particular to get its hands on cancer drug Imbruvica. The deal closed in May and should be a big driver of growth for the company in the years to come. A key benefit of the deal is that it will help to diversify Abbvie's revenue base away from its reliance on their blockbuster drug Humira, which is set to lose patent protection in the U.S. in December 2016 and in the EU in 2018. Here's what management had to say about how the Pharmacyclics deal will impact AbbVie's financial statements in the years to come:

2. Humira will drive cash flow for years to comeBlockbuster drug Humira was responsible for producing 63% of AbbVie's revenue in 2014. However, with the patent for Humira set to expire in the not-so-distant future, investors have lots of questions about what the impact to revenue and earnings will be when the patent officially expires.Amgen has already made it known that is they consider Humira to be a great candidate for a biosimilar, which is essentially a generic version of a biologic drug. Management, however, is confident that they have hundreds of patents related to the formulation, manufacturing, and indications of Humira, and they will use their intellectual property to defend Humira wherever they can.

3. Hepatitis C drugViekira Pak will be a bigcontributor to revenue for the yearAbbVie recently launched a hepatitis C regimen, Viekira Pak, in the United States following FDA approval in mid-December. The drug faces some tough competition from Gilead Sciences'blockbuster drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni, which may make it difficult for AbbVie's treatment to gain traction. First quarter results for Viekira Pak came in at $231 million worldwide, with only $138 million of that total coming from the U.S. Analysts were expecting sales of $236 million in the U.S. alone, so the drug appears to be off to slower-than-expected start.

Despite the disappointing early results, management actually remains very optimistic for Viekira Pak sales this year, forecasting well over blockbuster status by year end. Here's why:

Looking ahead, analysts see AbbVie continuing to grow its bottom line over the next five years by more than 14%, which makes the company's forward price-to-earnings multiple of 14 look quite reasonable. When you add in the company's generous dividend, which currently yields more than 3%, I'd say AbbVie looks like quite a compelling investment opportunity.

The article 3 Things AbbVie Inc.'s Management Wants You to Know originally appeared on Fool.com.

Brian Feroldi has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool owns shares of Gilead Sciences. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.