Abbott posted healthy results for the third quarter, with sales and earnings up 3.5 percent and 36 percent, respectively, prompting it to raise its full-year earnings forecast.
The Chicago-based medical devices and pharmaceuticals maker said it posted net earnings of $1.48 billion on sales of $7.76 billion during the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $1.09 billion in profits on $7.5 billion in sales during the same period last year.
The strong returns — Abbott’s $0.92 earnings-per-share mark beat its own EPS prediction of $0.88 to $0.90, though it fell short of mean analyst predictions, which put it at $1.13 — prompted the company to boost its full-year EPS guidance from $3.65-$3.70 to $3.70-$3.72.
The news sent ABT stock up nearly 2.6 percent by about 10:15 a.m., to $50.93 per share.
Abbott fared well overseas, with international sales up 8.5 percent over Q3 2008 (excluding a 9.6 percent hit from foreign exchange rates), to $4.14 billion. But domestic sales slipped 1.7 percent, falling to $3.62 billion.
Sales for its vascular segment rose 4.7 percent to $666 million, again excluding a hit from the weak dollar of 3.3 percent; vascular sales in the U.S. rose 5 percent to $395 million and international vascular revenues rose to $271 million, a 4.3 percent increase. Within the vascular segment, sales of coronary stents were off 1.3 percent in the U.S. ($244 million) but up 7.3 percent after exchange rates, to $145 million.
Those numbers could get a boost from recent clinical trial results showing that Abbott’s Xience V stent outperforms Boston Scientific‘s Taxus line.
U.S. Diabetes care product sales plunged more than 14 percent to $124 million and 8.2 percent overseas, to $193 million. Medical optics sales overall stayed flat. Core diagnostics sales slipped 6 percent to $147 million in the U.S. and 2.2 percent overseas, to $618 million; U.S. molecular diagnostics sales were up more than 11 percent to $38 million and rose a whopping 19 percent overseas, even including a 10.7 percent foreign exchange whack, reaching $44 million.
One key to the company’s overall positive posting was a 2.5 percent reduction in operating costs, as Abbott drove its cost-of-goods-sold numbers down more than 1.4 percent to $3.36 billion. Total operating costs and expenses were $6.12 billion during the period, compared with $6.1 billion during the third quarter of 2008.
Abbott also cited several acquisitions it made during the quarter, including its $410 million buyout of mitral valve repair firm Evalve Inc. and a $400 million deal for Visiogen Inc., which is developing an intraocular lens to treat cataracts.
