HealthcareAbbott Laboratories posted disappointing quarterly sales on slower growth of its top drug, arthritis treatment Humira, and provided new details of its planned split into two companies in January.
The diversified healthcare company, which sells traditional drugs, medical devices and nutritional products, also reported higher third-quarter earnings yesterday, beating expectations, despite a slight decline in overall sales.
Sales of Humira, by far its biggest product, rose 10.1 per cent to $2.33 billion, a slowdown from growth of almost 17 per cent in the prior quarter.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Glenn Novarro said Humira “came in $50 million light” due to weaker overseas sales.
Humira is expected to be the cornerstone of a planned spinoff on January 1st of Abbott’s branded drugs business into a publicly-traded company called AbbVie, which will have annual revenue estimated at more than $18 billion.
The remaining Abbott, nicknamed “new Abbott”, is expected to have 2013 sales of $23 billion from diagnostics, nutritional products, heart stents and generic medicines.
“Our shareholders will soon benefit from two fundamentally different investment opportunities with distinct strategic profiles and business priorities,” Abbott chief executive Miles White told investors in a conference call. – (Reuters)
