Abbott (NYSE:ABT) shares crept up today on first-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
The Abbott Park, Ill.–based company posted profits of $564 million, or 31¢ per share, on sales of $7.7 billion for the three months ended March 31, for a 16.1% bottom-line slide on sales growth of 2.5%.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were 65¢, 7¢ ahead of Wall Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $7.3 billion.
“First and foremost, I want to thank our employees, our customers, and our suppliers for their extraordinary efforts to maintain supply of our critically important products to the people who need them, around the world,” Abbott president & CEO Robert Ford said in a news release. “It’s an unprecedented time and our colleagues are rising to it in unprecedented ways.”
Shares of ABT were up 2.9% at $93.59 per share in early-morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up 0.4%.
Abbott previously issued full-year 2020 guidance of $3.55 to $3.65 per share, but is suspending that projection amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the global crisis, the company has launched three separate tests for the virus.
Ford is also among six medtech executives named to the White House task force designated by President Donald Trump to provide recommendations on how best to safely reopen the U.S. economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.