Rewrites throughout with company comments

By Puyaan Singh and Siddhi Mahatole

July 31 (Reuters) - AbbVie ABBV.N said on Thursday its tariff exposure is not expected to exceed that of rivals, and raised its 2025 profit forecast citing strong sales of its newer immunology drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq.

CEO Robert Michael said AbbVie is "fairly insulated" from any tariff impact this year given "inventory management actions." The company has 11 manufacturing sites in the U.S. and its top-selling product, Skyrizi, is made there for the domestic market.

The company will continue to invest in the U.S., and it is having constructive discussions with the Trump administration on pharmaceutical sectoral tariffs.

Shares of the drugmaker were up 3.3% at $195.48.

Michael also said "we do need to see the outcome of the 232 investigation and how tariffs are ultimately phased in."

In April, Trump stepped up probes under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors as part of a bid to impose tariffs on both sectors on grounds that extensive reliance on foreign production of medicine and chips is a national security threat.

The company is doubling down on Skyrizi and Rinvoq to counter the drop in sales of arthritis treatment Humira, as the once-bestselling drug faces competition from several cheaper biosimilars that began hitting the U.S. market in 2023.

Skyrizi recorded quarterly sales of $4.42 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $4 billion, while Rinvoq sales of $2.03 billion surpassed estimates of $1.97 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The Chicago-based drugmaker has spent more than $20 billion on acquisitions since 2023 as Humira lost patent protection. On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that AbbVie is in talks to acquire privately held psychiatric disorder drug developer Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth about $1 billion.

Global sales of Humira came in at $1.18 billion in the second quarter, missing estimates of $1.45 billion.

Its cancer drug Venclexta, which brought in $691 million in sales during the quarter, is expected to benefit from Trump's "one big beautiful bill".

Under the recently passed law, drugs such as Venclexta that have one or more rare-disease orphan designations from the FDA will be exempt from the Inflation Reduction Act's drug-price negotiations. Earlier, only drugs with a single orphan designation were exempt.

For the year, Michael said Skyrizi and Rinvoq are "on pace" to bring in $25 billion in combined revenue. The company expects Humira sales in 2025 to come in at $3 billion, a far cry from its peak annual sales of $21.2 billion in 2022.

The company now expects adjusted annual profit per share between $11.88 and $12.08, compared with its previous expectations of $11.67 to $11.87.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Carter Gould said AbbVie "delivered the stand-out print so far across large-cap biopharma."

AbbVie's quarterly adjusted profit per share of $2.97 beat Wall Street estimates of $2.88.

(Reporting by Siddhi Mahatole and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

((siddhi.mahatole@thomsonreuters.com;))