Med-tech titan St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) pleased and disappointed with its 1st quarter financial report, beating Wall Street’s earnings forecasts but continuing to slide in cardiac rhythm management devices.
The St. Paul, Minn. device maker’s Q1 bottom line shrank 9% to $212 million, or 67¢ per diluted share, comparing with $233 million, or 71¢ per share, during the same period last year.
Adjusted for 1-time costs, the company posted earnings of 86¢ per share, beating The Street by 3¢ for the quarter.
St. Jude’s top line increased a modest 1.4% to $1.4 billion during the 3 months ended March 31, bolstered by growth in the atrial fibrillation, neuromodulation and, to a lesser degree, cardiovascular businesses.
That helped make up for sliding sales in the company’s cardiac rhythm management, implantable cardioverter defibrillator and pacemaker sales.
St. Jude, embroiled in a high-profile lead recall and a bitter rivalry with cross-town device giant Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), noted a 4% decrease in worldwide CRM sales to $735 million, a 3% decrease in ICD sales to $450 million and a 4% decline in pacemaker sales to $285 million.
Global atrial fibrillation sales rose 13% to $221 million, neuromodulation increased 12% to $103 million and cardiovascular sales rose 3% to $336 million.
Chairman, president & CEO Daniel Starks remained optimistic about 2012, looking forward to new product lines and improvements to existing technologies.
"First quarter results exceeded expectations for sales and adjusted earnings per share," Starks said in prepared remarks. "This was driven especially by innovations designed to improve patient outcomes and reduce the cost of health care such as our new line of Unify Quadra ICDs in the U.S. We look forward to building on our strong start to 2012 by introducing our Portico line of transcatheter heart valves and our EnligHTN line of renal denervation products in Europe before the end of this year."
The company increased its Q2 2012 earnings guidance to 86¢-88¢ per diluted share and its full-year guidance to $3.44-$3.49, but that did little to inspire Wall Street’s affections.
STJ shares sank $2.7% to $38 around noon today.
