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Abbott Laboratories (ABT) reported a 36% increase in third-quarter profit, helped by higher sales of nutritional products and heart devices and accelerating sales growth for its top drug, arthritis treatment Humira.

The Abbott Park, Ill., health-care products company's earnings exceeded Wall Street expectations, and Abbott also boosted its financial forecast for 2009.

Abbott shares rose $1.27, or 2.6%, to $50.92 in recent trading, hitting their highest level in more than six months. The quarterly results eased investor anxiety over sales slowdowns for Humira and bolstered confidence in Abbott's recent dealmaking.

"Things are looking pretty rosy for Abbott," said Tim Nelson, health-care analyst with First American Funds, which owns Abbott shares. "They put some investors' minds at ease relative to longer term Humira growth potential."

Abbott has enjoyed solid sales and profit growth in recent years and avoided some of the pitfalls hurting its pharmaceutical rivals. But it has still been reliant on certain products for much of its profit growth, including Humira - a situation that became troublesome earlier this year when Humira sales growth decelerated. Abbott shares were down substantially earlier in the year, though they have been on the rise more recently.

To further diversify, Abbott has made a series of acquisitions including its September agreement to purchase Solvay SA's (SVYSY) pharmaceutical unit for about $6.6 billion cash. Abbott executives hinted Wednesday that the deal should deliver upside to current Wall Street expectations for 2010 earnings.

Abbott reported earnings of $1.48 billion, or 95 cents a share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $1.09 billion, or 69 cents a share, a year earlier. The latest quarter included a gain of 11 cents a share for a patent-litigation settlement and charges of 8 cents a share for integration and cost-reduction initiatives, while the year-earlier period had charges of 10 cents a share for cost reductions.

Excluding these items, earnings rose 16.5% to 92 cents a share, exceeding the mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters of 90 cents a share.

Net sales rose 3.5% to $7.76 billion, in line with Street expectations, with unfavorable currency-exchange rates slicing off 4.9 percentage points of growth.

Abbott's biggest division, pharmaceuticals, saw sales decline 1.6% to $4.06 billion, with U.S. sales off 6.6% and non-U.S. sales up 3.8%. Sales of Humira rose 23.8% to $1.49 billion, continuing an acceleration from earlier in the year when sales growth slowed due to currency fluctuations and rising copays for some patients.

Abbott boosted its forecast for full-year 2009 Humira sales growth to a range of 18% to 20%, from a prior range of 15% to 20%. Abbott had gone into the year expecting at least 25% sales growth for Humira, but then lowered its expectations.

Morgan Stanley analyst David Lewis said the Humira numbers provided "direct evidence that our thesis predicated on 'Humira Bruised not Broken'" was intact.

Sales of HIV drug Kaletra declined 8.7%, combined sales of cholesterol drugs TriCor and Trilipix were off 1%, and cholesterol drug Niaspan was up 10.6%. Sales of epilepsy treatment Depakote plunged 71% due to the availability of generic copycats.

Abbott attributed the decline in combined TriCor and Trilipix sales to financial-assistance programs it has offered patients while trying to broaden health-plan coverage of the drugs. Abbott said such assistance should be temporary because insurance coverage is increasing.

Nutritional sales, which include Similac baby formula, rose 9.8% to $1.39 billion.

Sales of Abbott's diagnostics products declined 0.3% to $909 million.

Sales growth for Abbott's vascular products - which include the Xience V artery-opening stent - leveled off at 4.7%, a marked slowdown from recent quarters. Xience was launched in the U.S. in the summer of 2008, so this year's third quarter was the first with meaningful year-earlier comparisons for Xience.

"This was particularly strong growth given the full impact we're absorbing from generic Depakote this year, currency headwinds, and the global economic environment," Abbott Chief Financial Officer Thomas Freyman said on a conference call with analysts.

Abbott boosted its 2009 earnings outlook to $3.70 to $3.72 a share, excluding certain items, from its previous range of $3.65 to $3.70.

-By Peter Loftus, Dow Jones Newswires; 215-656-8289; peter.loftus@dowjones.com