Imagine writing about Coca Cola(KO) without discussing soda, or Microsoft(MSFT) without discussing Windows. For AbbVie, Humira accounts for over 50% of revenues and over 70% of profits. For all intents and purposes, AbbVie is Humira, and Humira is AbbVie. How then, can we take seriously this morning’s piece by Seeking Alpha contributor Josh Hutheson? The article never mentions Humira by name; it blithely states “although ABBV has some drugs coming off patent over the next couple of years” without mentioning the extreme dependence on Humira, which will be coming off patent in 2016. Says Hutheson “AbbVie is a research-based pharmaceutical company with a broad and sustainable portfolio of market-leading proprietary pharmaceuticals and biologics sold worldwide.” Broad and sustainable? Hardly! Hutheson is bullish on the pipeline, without acknowledging the high failure rate of drugs in even late stage clinical trials.
Perhaps most disturbing, the article inexplicably contains a paragraph discussing a biotech penny stock named Amarantus Biotech(AMBS). This company has no revenues, a whopping three employees, and a market cap of $22 million. Did we mention that it has no cash either? Someone more cynical than us could be forgiven for assuming the author’s intent in writing this article was to promote this vaporous company. There is no conceivable way that the mention of this firm can shed any light on the putative subject of the article, AbbVie.
SeekingAlpha has a real credibility problem and, based on my correspondence with them, no interest in addressing it. There is a lot of great financial content being produced but a lot more awful, misleading, and fraudulent content. It’s time for a value-added aggregator with high standards that is willing to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Disclosure: The author has no position in any stock mentioned
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