St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) posted increased profits during the 1st quarter despite reporting lower sales.

The St. Paul-based medical device company said profits for the 3 months ended March 30 were $223 million, or 78¢ per share, on sales of $1.34 billion. That’s a 5.2% bottom-line gain compared with Q1 2012, but a 4.1% top-line reduction.

Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, earnings per share were 92¢. Analysts on Wall Street were looking for adjusted EPS of 91¢ per share.

St. Jude’s cardiac rhythm management numbers were down, with pacemakers leading the decline at a 12% clip, to $251 million; implantable cardiac defibrillator revenues were down 5% to 427 million. That made for an overall CRM decline of 8%, to $678 million.

"We are pleased with our track record of delivering strong earnings-per-share growth while we continue to invest in our diversified product portfolio. We expect sales growth to accelerate as we launch more than 20 new products to the market in 2013," chairman, president & CEO Daniel Starks said in prepared remarks.