AbbVie reports robust first quarter

Strong growth across the portfolio at AbbVie, a life sciences firm with operations in Worcester, drove profits up 4.3 percent in the first quarter, the company reported Thursday.

Leading that portfolio is the anti-inflammatory drug Humira, for which sales grew 18 percent, to $3.11 billion, in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the first quarter of 2014.

However, industry watchers note that some patents for Humira begin to expire in late 2016. In addition to moves to expand its slate of pharmaceutical offerings, such as with its new hepatitis C virus treatment Viekira Pak, the company is planning to defend Humira by wielding numerous patents globally that cover manufacturing processes and methods of use, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Amgen Inc. and several others companies are developing generic versions of Humira.

“We have a robust portfolio of intellectual property protecting Humira, which we intend to enforce if infringed by a biosimilar applicant,” AbbVie Chief Executive Richard Gonzalez said Thursday on a conference call with analysts, the WSJ reported.

North Chicago-based AbbVie last month announced its acquisition of Pharmacyclics, a California-based maker of the blood cancer treatment Imbruvica (ibrutinib). The company described the $21 billion deal Thursday as a key event of the first quarter, which ended March 31.

AbbVie is a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories. Excluding costs related to the separation and other items, per-share earnings, earnings rose to from 71 cents in the first quarter of 2014 to 94 cents per share in the first quarter of 2015. Analysts had expected the figure to be 85 cents a share.