Abbott beats Wall Street expectations with med device sales, raises outlook

Abbott’s strong medical devices sales boosted the company during the first part of 2024, beating Wall Street expectations and raising its forward-looking financial guidance.

The company released its latest earnings report Wednesday morning, boasting $10 billion in reported sales, up 2.2% year-over-year. Though domestic sales dropped 2.1% compared to Q1 2023, Abbott’s international sales increased 5.2%. 

The company’s lead driver was its medical devices unit, which increased 14.2% to $4.4 billion during the period. Subcategories of medical devices that produced double-digit growth included Abbott’s diabetes care, electrophysiology, neuromodulation and structural heart divisions.

Of note, Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre generated $1.5 billion in sales, up 22.4% year-over-year. 

In other segments, nutrition sales rose 5.1% and established pharmaceuticals increased 3.1%, while diagnostics dropped 17.6% as demand for COVID-19 testing products continued to decline. Excluding those offerings, its diagnostic unit saw sales increase 5%.

Abbott’s organic sales growth was 4.7% and excluding COVID testing sales, reached 10.8% during the quarter. The company’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) also reached $0.98, topping analyst expectations of $0.96.

Based on the quarterly performance, Abbott raised the midpoint of its full year guidance range, with an adjusted EPS between $4.55 to $70 and organic sales growth excluding COVID sales to between 8.5% to 10%.

“Our first-quarter results reflect a strong start to the year, and we are raising our full-year sales and EPS guidance,” Abbott CEO Robert B. Ford said in a statement. “This was the fifth consecutive quarter that we delivered double-digit organic sales growth in our underlying base business, which included particularly strong results in Medical Devices and Established Pharmaceuticals.”

Abbott had a number of notable developments throughout the quarter, including the launch of the Protality brand of high-protein nutrition shakes at the end of January.

However, towards the end of the quarter, the Food and Drug Administration deemed the company’s recall of HeartMate Touch System as a Class I recall, the most serious designation for a medical device.

Yet shortly after the quarter ended, the FDA also approved Abbott’s TriClip transcatheter edge-to-edge repair system for treating a leaky tricuspid valve.