Abbott Laboratories 3Q Profit, Sales Rise on Covid-19 Testing

By Dave Sebastian

Abbott Laboratories said its profit and sales for the September quarter grew due to demand for Covid-19 tests.

The Abbott Park, Ill.-based health-care products company on Wednesday recorded a third-quarter profit of $1.23 billion, or 69 cents a share, compared with $960 million, or 53 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations were 98 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting adjusted earnings of 91 cents a share.

Sales were $8.85 billion, up 9.6% from the year-ago period. Analysts were looking for $8.54 billion.

The company's diagnostics sales rose 38.2% to $2.64 billion, with Covid-19 testing-related sales of $881 million. The company in August received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a Covid-19 rapid test.

Sales in its medical-devices segment rose 3.4% to $3.17 billion, and those in the nutrition segment rose 2.6% to $1.92 billion. Sales in the established pharmaceuticals segment fell 9.3% to $1.1 billion.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 21, 2020 08:11 ET (12:11 GMT)

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