It's been more than a year since (NYSE: ABBV) lost patent exclusivity for its most important product, Humira, an immunology medicine. Though this was a long time coming, the market reacted as though it was unexpected: AbbVie's shares dropped once the magnitude of Humira's sales decline became clear, during the drugmaker's first-quarter 2023 earnings release. AbbVie hasn't done much better since.

However, the drugmaker is showing great signs of being able to handle this headwind and deliver excellent results for a while afterward. Let's consider three such signs.

Let's put things in context. Humira wasn't just AbbVie's top product, generating peak sales of $21.2 billion. It was the best-selling medicine in the biopharma industry's history, one in which many drugs never cross the "$1 billion in annual sales" mark. Furthermore, Humira accounted for a hefty percentage of AbbVie's sales. In 2022, the last year before it lost patent exclusivity in the U.S., Humira made up just under 37% of AbbVie's total revenue.

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Source Fool.com