Medical device sales lagged during Abbott‘s (NYSE:ABT) 1st quarter, especially for its vascular care division and its continued slide on dwindling royalty payments from Boston Scientific‘s (NYSE:BSX) Promus stent.
Abbott’s vascular unit’s sales came to $803 million during the 3 months ended March 31, marked by a 12.2% decline in U.S. revenues, which contributed to a 4.9% global decline for the division compared to the same period last year.
Excluding the effect of sliding royalty revenues, U.S. vascular sales grew 7.9% and global sales were up 3.8%, Abbott said.
Boston Scientific’s Promus cobalt-chromium everolimus-eluting stent is a private-label version of Abbott’s Xience V device. The private-label deal ended in Europe in 2009, but a similar arrangement in the U.S. is slated to go until mid-2012.
Sales for Abbott’s diabetes care unit dropped 2.4% to $318 million for the quarter, but revenues for its medical optics segment grew 1.5% to $272 million.
Overall, the Illinois-based health care giant reported an enormous bump to its earnings amid modest top-line growth, beating Wall Street’s expectations along the way.
Abbott posted Q1 earnings of $1.24 billion, or 78¢ per diluted share, an impressive 44% increase from $864 million, or 55¢ per share, earned during the same period last year. Excluding 1-time charges, the company reported earnings of $1.03 per share, beating The Street by 3¢.
The company’s top-line growth was less dramatic, rising 4.6% to sales of $9.46 billion, compared to $9.04 billion in Q1 2011.
Abbott boosted its earnings guidance for the year to $5.00-$5.10 earned per share from its previous forecast of $4.95-$5.05.
Wall Street wasn’t too impressed with the news, it seems. ABT shares were flat at $60.42 as of about 3 p.m. today.
