St. Jude Medical's Sales Rise 12%

Heart-device maker St. Jude Medical Inc. said Wednesday that its third-quarter revenue grew, led by a 13% sales increase abroad.

The St. Paul, Minn., company posted international sales of $716 million, up from $634 million. The U.S. region also posted strong sales growth, rising 11% to $783 million. World-wide sales of its heart-failure devices pulled the top line higher, growing 46%.

St. Jude agreed to a $25 billion tie-up with Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories in April, amid a flurry of transactions as companies across the health-care space respond to cost pressures by beefing up to increase their negotiating leverage and gain pricing power.

Chief Executive Michael Rousseau said the Abbott deal is on track to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Also this week St. Jude and Abbott announced they would sell $1.1 billion in assets upon closing the deal.

St. Jude has been working to tap new markets, buying heart-device maker Thoratec last year for $3.4 billion.

Overall for the quarter, St. Jude reported a profit of $212 million, or 73 cents a share, down from $215 million, or 75 cents, a year earlier. Excluding items such as amortization and acquisition-related costs, earnings rose to 99 cents from 97 cents.

Revenue jumped 12% to $1.5 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast earnings of $1.01 on $1.5 billion in revenue.

St. Jude withdrew its financial guidance for the year due to the merger when it reported second-quarter results in July.

Shares fell 1.8% premarket. The stock has climbed 29% so far this year.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 19, 2016 09:55 ET (13:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.