Drugmaker AbbVie's profit beats estimates on strong Humira sales

(Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker AbbVie Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, driven by strong sales of its arthritis drug, Humira. Shares of the company, which also raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast, rose about 2 percent to $65.69 in premarket trading on Thursday. Sales of Humira jumped 18 percent to $3.11 billion in the first quarter, accounting for about two-thirds of total revenue. The company agreed last month to buy Pharmacyclics Inc for about $21 billion to reduce its dependence on Humira and expand its cancer drug pipeline. Sales of AbbVie's all-oral hepatitis C treatment Viekira Pak, approved by U.S. regulators in December, came in at $231 million. The company has forecast an annualized run rate of more than $3 billion globally for Viekira Pak by the end of 2015. Revenue rose 10.5 percent to $5.04 billion in the quarter ended March 31, above the $4.99 billion analysts on average had expected. Profit rose to $1.02 billion, or 63 cents per share, from $980 million, or 61 cents per share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 94 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of 85 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. AbbVie raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast to $4.10-$4.30 per share, from $4.05 to $4.25 earlier. (This sroty corrects to say 'annualized run rate of more than $3 billion globally by the end of 2015' not 'annual sales of more than $3 billion by the end of the year' in the sixth paragraph) (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Sriraj Kalluvila)