St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) shares gained in early-morning trading today after the medical device company said it beat Wall Street’s expectations for sales and earnings and boosted its outlook for the rest of 2013.
St. Paul, Minn.-based St. Jude posted profits of $262.0 million, or 90¢ per share, on sales of $1.34 billion for the 3 months ended Sept. 28. That amounts to a profit increase of 48.9% on sales growth of 0.9%, compared with Q3 2012.
Excluding 1-time items, adjusted earnings per share were also 90¢, a penny ahead of The Street’s expectations.
That and the raised guidance sent STJ shares up 0.4% to $55.62 apiece in pre-market trading today.
"Our 3rd-quarter results demonstrate that we are successfully implementing our program to accelerate sales growth on a sustainable basis while strengthening our program with selective and disciplined acquisitions," chairman, president & CEO Daniel Starks said in prepared remarks.
St. Jude said it expects 4th-quarter adjusted EPS to be between 95¢ and 97¢, on sales of $1.32 billion to $1.40 billion. Full-year adjusted EPS are pegged at $3.72-$3.74, up from prior guidance of $3.70-$3.73, on sales of $5.39 billion to $5.47 billion.
The results suggest that St. Jude is regaining some of the market share it lost after it was forced to recall its Riata pacemaker leads, Leerink Swann analyst Danielle Antalffy wrote this morning in a note to investors.
"This is clearly another encouraging sales quarter – now its 2nd consecutive sales beat – as STJ appears to be both regaining ICD market share and continuing to make progress on returning its other businesses to an accelerating growth profile," Antalffy wrote. "[D]eclines across non-[cardiac rhythm management] businesses now seem to have basically stabilized for 4 consecutive quarters, and even began to show growth this quarter. Based on our current [implantable cardioverter defibrillator] market model, STJ gained ~70bps U.S. market share Y/Y and now holds an estimated ~29.3% share – encouraging in that it suggests ongoing Riata/Durata lead issues have mostly subsided."