After Coherus BioSciences (CHRS) announced that it has filed four petitions for Inter Partes Review seeking invalidation of AbbVie's (ABBV) U.S. patent that protects formulations of Humira that do not include a buffer, Maxim analyst Jason McCarthy said he believes Coherus' focus on IP increases the company's probability of success in being first to market in the race for biosimilar Humira. The analyst, who thinks Coherus could potentially bring a Humira biosimilar to market by as early as 2019, keeps a Buy rating and $43 price target on Coherus shares.

Notable companies reporting before tomorrow's open, with earnings consensus, include Exxon Mobil (XOM), consensus $2.20... Chevron (CVX), consensus $2.87... AbbVie (ABBV), consensus $2.23... HCA Healthcare (HCA), consensus $5.01... Colgate-Palmolive (CL), consensus 81c... Charter (CHTR), consensus $7.92... AutoNation (AN), consensus $4.27.

AbbVie announced positive topline results from LEVEL UP, an open-label, efficacy assessor-blinded head-to-head Phase 3b/4 study that evaluated the efficacy and safety of upadacitinib versus dupilumab in adults and adolescents with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis who had an inadequate response to systemic therapy or when use of those therapies was inadvisable. In the LEVEL UP study, upadacitinib showed superior efficacy versus dupilumab in the primary endpoint, demonstrating that a significantly higher proportion of patients simultaneously achieved both a 90% or greater reduction in Eczema Area and Severity Index and a Worst Pruritus Numerical Rating Scale of 0 or 1 at Week 16.