Abbott Laboratories has announced impressive financial performance during the year ended December 2007 on account of higher sales, favourable exchange rates and reduction of costs. The net profit increased by 110 per cent to US$ 3,606 million from $1,717 million in the previous year. The net sales increased by 15.3 per cent to $25,914 million from $22,476 million. With smart growth in net profit, it's earning per share improved to $2.31 from $1.12 in the last year.
Miles D White, chairman and CEO, said, "The strength and balance of Abbott's broad mix of businesses helped us to deliver another year of consistent performance. Both our sales and earnings per share increased double digits. Given the leadership positions of our major businesses, and the new products launching over the next year, we expect another year of strong results in 2008".
The company's sales in US increased by 12 per cent to $12,874 million during 2007 its total pharmaceutical sales increased by 18 per cent to $14,632 million and the same in US increased by 19.2 per cent to $7,806 million. Its Nutritional sales improved by 1.7 per cent to $4,388 million and worldwide diagnostics sales moved up by 11.1 per cent to $3,158 million.
The sales of Abbott's leading product - Humira - increased by almost 50 per cent to $3,064 million and that of Depakote went up by 20.4 per cent to $1,575 million. Abbott recently received European and US regulatory approval for Humira for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Kaletra and TriCor also registered a strong growth of 16.7 per cent and 16.2 per cent respectively. US FDA approved for a new lower strength table formulation of Kaletra for leading HIV protease inhibitor.
With better performance in the year 2007, Abbott has projected earnings-per-share of $3.20 to $3.25 for the full-year 2008. The company declared the quarterly common dividend of 32.5 cents per share.