Abbott Laboratories has reported net profit of $905 million during the fourth quarter ended December 2014 as against $589 million, a growth of 53 per cent due to significant earnings from discontinued operations. Its earnings from discontinued operations (net of taxes) amounted to $271 as compared to $106 in the last period. Its net sales moved up by 5.6 per cent to $5,356 million from $5,072 million. EPS improved to $0.41 from $0.31 in the last period.

The sales of nutriation amounted to $1,804 million and that of diagnostic reached at $1,234 million. Medical devices sales were at $1,379 million. International sales from continuing operations increased by 15.6 per cent on an operational basis and 8.9 per cent on a reported basis in the fourth quarter. Emerging market sales from continuing operations increased by 22.8 per cent on an operational basis and 17.2 per cent on a reported basis in the fourth quarter. The company excluded branded generic pharmaceuticals business from continuing operations due to the pending sale of this business to Mylan and are reported as discontinued operations.    

In December, Abbott completed its acquisitions of Topera, Inc., a medical device company focused on developing innovative electrophysiology technologies, and Veropharm, a leading Russian pharma company. The company received European approval for its Iridica infectious disease testing platform and US FDA clearance for a heart failure test on its ARCHITECT platform.

Miles D White, chairman, said “We ended 2014 with good momentum, well positioned for a step-up in operational sales growth in 2015. While we’ll need to manage through currency headwinds again in 2015, we’re targeting another year of top-tier earnings growth.”

For the full year ended December 2014, Abbott’s total sales increased by 3 per cent to $20,247 million from $19,657 million in the previous year. Its net earnings, however, declined by 11.3 per cent to $2,284 million from $2,576 million. Its sales of nutrition increased by 8.9 per cent to $6,953 million. It opened three new manufacturing plants in China, India and the US to meet increasing demand for its products, and formed a strategic partnership with the world’s largest dairy cooperative, Fonterra, to invest locally in China’s milk supply. The sales diagnostics reached at $4,720 million. The sales of medical devices reached at $5,392 million.