Abbott Laboratories Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Abbott Laboratories EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.09
• Consensus EPS: $1.07
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.02
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Abbott Laboratories Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $10.36 billion
• Expected Revenue: $10.38 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$23.39 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Abbott Laboratories Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 4/16/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) is a global healthcare company specializing in developing, manufacturing and marketing a wide range of healthcare products. The company has its headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois and operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

The company was founded in 1888 by Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, and it has since grown to become one of the world's largest and most respected healthcare companies. Abbott Laboratories has a diverse portfolio of products, including medical devices, diagnostic tests, nutritional products, and branded generic pharmaceuticals. The company is committed to developing innovative products that improve the quality of life for people worldwide.

Robert B. Ford is the current President and CEO of the company. He was appointed to this position in 2020 after serving as the company's Chief Operating Officer. He has been with Abbott Laboratories since 1996 and has held various leadership positions.

Abbott Laboratories has delivered strong financial performance, declining as investors seek growth. The company's net earnings have been increasing steadily. Abbott Laboratories has a solid balance sheet with a low debt-to-equity ratio. The company has consistently delivered strong cash flow, allowing it to invest in research and development and return value to shareholders. Abbott Laboratories has a higher price-to-earnings ratio than the industry average, and the company's price-to-book ratio is also higher than the industry average. These metrics suggest that the market has a positive outlook on Abbott Laboratories and is willing to pay a premium for the company's shares. Over the past year, Abbott Laboratories' stock has declined as consumers seek to see what the company will do post-pandemic. The company's shares have experienced some volatility, but overall, they have outperformed the broader market. 

Abbott Laboratories operates in the healthcare industry, which is highly regulated and complex. The industry is characterized by rapidly evolving technology, changing regulatory requirements, and shifting consumer preferences. Abbott Laboratories competes with other large healthcare companies such as Johnson & Johnson.

Abbott Laboratories' robust product pipeline is expected to drive growth in the coming years. The company is focused on developing innovative products that address unmet medical needs and improve patient outcomes. In addition to its core businesses, Abbott Laboratories is expanding into new markets and investing in digital health technologies.

Like any company, Abbott Laboratories faces a range of risks and challenges. One of the most significant risks facing the company is regulatory uncertainty. Changes in regulatory requirements could impact the company's ability to bring products to market and could also increase the cost of doing business. Another risk facing the company is the threat of competitive pressures. The healthcare industry is highly competitive, and Abbott Laboratories faces competition from established companies and new entrants. Changes in consumer preferences could also impact the company's performance, particularly in the nutritional products segment.

Additionally, Abbott Laboratories is exposed to geopolitical risks, such as changes in trade policies or political instability in key markets. The company's international operations also expose it to currency fluctuations, which could impact its financial performance.

Abbott Laboratories Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Abbott's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be able to listen only until the question and answer portion of this call. During the question and answer session, you will be able to ask your question by pressing the star one, one keys on your touch tone phone. This call is being recorded by Abbott.

[Operator]

With the exception of any participants' questions asked during the question and answer session, the entire call, including the question and answer session, is material copyrighted by Abbott. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Abbott's expressed written permission. I would now like to introduce Mr. Mike Camilla, Vice President, Investor Relations.

[Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations. at Abbott Laboratories]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Robert Ford, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Phil Boudreaux, Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Robert and Phil will provide opening remarks. Following their comments, we'll take your questions. Before we get started, some statements made today may be forward looking for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the expected financial results for 2025.

[Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations. at Abbott Laboratories]

Abbott cautions that these forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward looking statements. Economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors that may affect Abbott's operations are discussed in Item 1A, Risk Factors, to our annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 12/31/2024. Abbott undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments except as required by law. On today's conference call, as in the past, non GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Abbott's ongoing business performance. These non GAAP financial measures are reconciled with comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings news release and regulatory filings from today, which are available on our website at abbott.com.

[Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations. at Abbott Laboratories]

Note that Abbott has not provided the related GAAP financial measures on a forward looking basis for the non GAAP financial measures for which it is providing guidance because the company is unable to predict with reasonable certainty and without unreasonable effort the timing and impact of certain items, which could significantly impact Abbott's results in accordance with GAAP. Unless otherwise noted, our commentary on sales growth refers to organic sales growth, which is defined in the press release issued earlier today. With that, I will now turn the call over to Robert.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As we progress through 2025, it is clear that we are operating in an increasingly dynamic environment. AGENT was built not just to operate, but to succeed in rapidly evolving environments like this. We have consistently demonstrated our ability to navigate the complexities arising from a range of global circumstances, the repercussions of a global pandemic, global financial crisis, numerous geopolitical events, just to name a few.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And the current evolving economic environment influenced by new tariff policies represents another global development that we are prepared to adeptly manage. The proven benefits of our diversified business model are evident now, a result of the strategic framework that drives our global manufacturing and supply chain operations. While tariffs will have a financial impact, with 90 manufacturing sites around the world and decades of experience executing our global network strategy, we're well positioned to implement mitigations to help manage the impact of the tariffs. I'll now shift our focus to discussing our results for the quarter. Overall, we achieved our target growth objective, delivering high single digit sales growth and double digit earnings per share growth.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

First quarter sales grew 7% or more than 8% when excluded COVID testing sales. First quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.09 grew 11% versus the prior year and finished at the high end of our guidance range. I'll now summarize our first quarter results in more detail before turning the call over to Phil, and I'll start with nutrition. The air sales increased 7% in the quarter. Growth in the quarter was driven by high single digit growth in adult nutrition and double digit growth in US Pediatric Nutrition.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

In pediatric nutrition, our relentless focus on research, innovation, and product quality continues to make our Similac family of products the number one choice for parents in The United States. In adult nutrition, growth of 8.5% was driven by growing demand for Abbott's Ensure family of products that serve as a source of complete and balanced nutrition for people with a wide range of nutritional needs. Moving to diagnostics, sales declined 5% in the quarter due to the year over year decline in COVID-nineteen testing sales resulting from a much weaker COVID season, which primarily impacted growth in our rapid diagnostics business. In Core Laboratory Diagnostics, low single digit growth in the quarter reflects the impact of volume based procurement programs in China. Excluding China, Core Laboratory sales grew 6.5%.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And wrapping up in diagnostics, we remain on track to go live by the end of the year with two new manufacturing and R and D investments in Illinois and Texas, totaling $05,000,000,000 related to expanding our US Transfusion Diagnostic business. Our transfusion business is responsible for screening The US blood supply. Our current blood screening system, Alinity S, runs diagnostic tests to identify various antibodies and antigens that may be present in donated blood. We have developed a new system called Alinity N that will allow Abbott to enter the molecular nucleic acid testing segment of the blood screening market. This advanced technology is capable of detecting DNA and RNA of several diseases that could potentially contaminate blood donations.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

The nucleic acid testing market opportunity is estimated to be around $1,000,000,000 and represents an attractive new growth opportunity for our business. Turning to EPD, where sales increased 8% in the quarter. Growth was broad based across the markets we serve, led by double digit growth in more than half of our key 15 markets. We continue to make great progress on building a best in class portfolio of biosimilars that spans across several large and attractive therapeutic areas. In January, we entered into an agreement that provides Abbott commercialization rights to four additional biosimilars across emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, The Middle East and Africa.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Through the various collaboration agreements we have executed, we have now added a total of 15 biosimilar products projected to contribute to sales over the next three years. And I'll wrap up with medical devices where sales grew 12.5%. In diabetes care, sales of continuous glucose monitors were $1,700,000,000 in the quarter and grew more than 20%, including growth of 30% in The United States. In electrophysiology, sales grew 10%, which included double digit growth in The US and high single digit growth in international markets. In March, we announced that Abbott obtained CE Mark earlier than expected for our Vault PFA system to help treat patients battling atrial fibrillation.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We have already initiated the launch of Vault and will further expand the rollout across European markets over the course of the year. In Structural Heart, growth of 15% was driven by strong performance across our market leading portfolio of surgical valves, structural interventions, and transcatheter repair and replacement products. Growth in the quarter was led by continued share gains in TAVR and growing adoption of TRICLIP. In March, new two year data from the TRILUMINATE clinical trial was presented at the American College of Cardiology Conference. The data showed that patients receiving Triclip had a statistically significant reduction in the occurrence of heart failure related hospitalizations along with sustained reductions in tricuspid regurgitation and life changing improvements in quality of life.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

In Ribbon Management, growth of 6% was led by consistent and sustained market penetration of Avera, our innovative leadless pacemaker, and Assert, our newest implantable cardiac monitor. In heart failure, growth of 12% was driven by our market leading portfolio of heart assist devices which offers treatment for chronic and temporary conditions. In January, CMS issued national coverage decision to cover CardioMEMS, a small implantable sensor that provides early warning indications that help doctors treat heart failure. This expanded coverage will broaden access to CardioMEMS for those with Medicare Advantage plans and help further expand coverage to those with commercial insurance plans. In vascular, growth of 6% was led by double digit growth in vascular imaging and vessel closure products and growth from SPRE, our below the knee, resorbable stent.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

In March, we announced the start of our US pivotal trial to evaluate our coronary intravascular lithotripsy system in treating severe calcifications in the coronary arteries prior to implanting a stent. We expect to complete enrollment in this trial next year and file for FDA approval shortly thereafter. We look forward to entering this large and fast growing segment of the coronary intervention market and expect this to become a meaningful growth driver for our vascular business. And lastly, in neuromodulation, we began treating patients in our TRANSCEND clinical trial, a first of its kind trial designed to evaluate using deep brain stimulation to address treatment resistant depression, which represents a market opportunity exceeding $1,000,000,000 So, summary, we delivered another quarter of top tier performance. Sales grew high single digits and earnings per share grew double digits.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We expanded gross margin by 140 basis points and operating margin by 130 basis points compared to the prior year. The pipeline continues to provide a steady cadence of new growth opportunities with more than 25 key new products forecasted to launch over the next three years and we remain on track to deliver on the financial commitments we set at the beginning of the year. I'll now turn the call to Phil. Phil?

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

Thanks, Robert.

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

As Mike mentioned earlier, please note that all references to sales growth rates, unless otherwise noted, are on an organic basis. Turning to our first quarter results, sales increased 6.9% or 8.3% when excluding COVID testing related sales. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.09 increased 11% compared to the prior year and finished at the high end of our guidance range and above the consensus estimate. Foreign exchange had an unfavorable year over year impact of 2.8% on the first quarter sales. During the quarter, we saw the U.

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

S. Dollar weaken, which resulted in a favorable impact on sales compared to exchange rates at the time of our earnings call in January. Regarding other aspects of the P and L, the adjusted gross margin profile was 57.1% of sales, which increased 140 basis points compared to the prior year. This increase was driven by delivering on the underlying organic margin expansion we forecasted and also included an added benefit of more favorable fall through from foreign exchange. Gross margin expansion has always been a significant element of Abbott's company culture.

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

At any point in time, a substantial number of margin improvement initiatives are underway that span across our businesses as well as our functional areas, including supply chain, marketing and other administrative groups. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the valuable contributions from our Avid employees around the world who are driving these exceptional margin expansion results. Turning our focus back to the first quarter results, adjusted R and D was 6.7% of sales and adjusted SG and A was 29.5% of sales in the first quarter. Adjusted operating margin was 21% of sales, which reflects an increase of 130 basis points compared to prior year. Based on current rates, we now expect exchange to have an unfavorable impact of around 1% on the full year reported sales, which includes an expected unfavorable impact around 05% on the second quarter reported sales.

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

Lastly, for the second quarter, we forecast adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.23 to $1.27 With that, we'll now open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again.

[Operator]

For optimal sound quality, we kindly ask that you please use your handset instead of your speakerphone when asking your question. And our first question will come from Robert Marcus from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Great. Good morning. Congrats on a good quarter and thanks for taking the questions. Robert, I'll just ask them both together since they're sort of related. First on the full year guidance update, it looks like it moves a little lower when you back out the or stays the same when you back out COVID testing, but moves a little lower including that.

[Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

But you were able to hold EPS for the full year, even including the recently announced tariffs. And I guess that's the elephant in the room is tariffs. So maybe you could walk us through the impact of that, how it hits the balance sheet and P and L timing. We're all trying to figure out what does it look like on a full year. So maybe some of the offsets, you talked about the flexibility in the manufacturing footprint, how you're using that to your advantage?

[Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

And I'll leave it there.

[Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Thanks a lot.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Sure, Robbie. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think the maintaining of our guidance range, we had a great first quarter here and achieved what we wanted to achieve from a target growth perspective, high single digit sales growth, double digit EPS growth. We talked about getting back to that formula and excluded COVID testing sales, which I can tell you right now are our lowest gross margin product. We grew over 8%. So I think on the top line, everything that we've put in place, we feel very good about as evidenced in our first quarter.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Gross margin expansion is a key element of our plan to get back to double digit EPS. And to your question on tariffs, it's going to be an important definitely an important muscle to exercise here and really strong performance here. I think we guided 70 basis points of improvement and we saw about 140 in the first quarter. So, a really strong performance of the team there. And then the pipeline to kind of sustain the growth around it.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I think you saw a lot of activity this first quarter, whether it's the BOLT CE mark, beginning of our IVL trial, the NCD for CardioVEMS, the new data on TriClip. So there's a lot of great activity there when you think about kind of how we guided at the beginning of the year. Everything is pretty certain for us in terms of how we're executing and the expectations we have from the product. I guess the only aspect there of maybe some uncertainty that you raise is the tariff piece. I'd say prior to tariffs, prior to the whole tariffs, were even considering, given momentum that we were seeing in the base business, we're even considering raising our EPS guidance.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Tariffs are here, so reaffirming our guidance is already I think a pretty strong statement. We've completed a pretty strong assessment of every possible different type of scenario, not just in how it could impact us, but more importantly, Robbie, what are the different scenarios to be able to mitigate it? So, the team has been working very diligently. I think we only took a break over the weekend to watch the playoff hole, and then we went right back to it. And I can tell you, we feel very comfortable right now with information that we've got and obviously looking at potential scenarios that could arise down the road that we can cover, an impact of tariff, which I'd say really two geographies, The United States and China.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So right now, we estimate the tariff impact in 2025 to be a few hundred million dollars. That's a half year impact because I see any impact in Q2. And then we start to kind of see the impact happening in Q3. But there are other items here that I'd say are variables related to the tariffs that help offset. I can tell you there's a lot of R and D slowing down or SG and A slowing down in those mitigation plans.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But there are other variables to consider here. FX, we can see what's going on with the dollar as this discussion of tariff is ongoing. Interest rates, tax, there are a lot of levers that we've got at our disposal, put it this way, to be able to mitigate. Our job here is to manage this in the aggregate and contemplate here trade offs of the decisions. We're working on I think the key thing here that as we're going through it over the last ten days is there are definitely short term things that can be done to mitigate and close gap.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And we will be looking at those and delivering on those. But I think more importantly, Ravi, is how can you actually look at these on an ongoing basis? One thing we have learned from tariffs is they don't go away. So whatever comes, it stays and it stays for a while. Look at the tariffs that went into place in 2017, they're still there.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So we need to think about how do you mitigate this more in a long term sustainable way. So yes, you can use a balance sheet and you can build some inventory and we'll probably do some of that. But if your entire strategy is building inventory, guess what's going to happen in 2026 or whenever that inventory runs out. So we're really looking at the manufacturing network and optimizing it. As I said in my prepared comments, we've got 90 manufacturing sites across the world.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We have the manufacturing strategy and framework that's been in place for decades, Robbie. And it's a framework that hasn't been put in place because of tariffs, but it's going to serve us well, that same framework, when we think about more long term planning for tariffs. So I understand the temptation that many of you will have just to take this number that I've given a few hundred million dollars and then just double as an annualized impact. I think it's a little bit too early to do that. Like I said, our manufacturing network has got the ability on a more long term basis to mitigate this considerably.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And you just got to have intent, you got to have a balance sheet obviously to be able to make the CapEx investments. Some of them take longer, some of them you could do pretty fast. I mean, think about what we did during COVID, where we built three ISO certified GMP cleanroom manufacturing. We did it three months. So, there is opportunity to do that also.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But I think the key thing here is how do you balance the short term, the medium term and the long term. And we're not putting everything in short term, even though we are going to leverage some of those variables that I talked about, FX, interest, tax, etcetera. But we're really focusing on how to mitigate this going forward.

[Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase]

Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question will come from Larry Biegelsen from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

[Larry Biegelsen, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Hey, Robert. Just wanted to focus on the EP franchise. We're headed into the Heart Rhythm Society meeting next week.

[Larry Biegelsen, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

You just got approval for Volt in Europe. You put up a nice balanced quarter here. So maybe just kind of give us a kind of a state of the union and how you're feeling about that business in 2025 and beyond and just remind us of kind of The U. S. Approval timeline for Vault?

[Larry Biegelsen, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks for taking the question.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Sure. Well, listen, I've always felt bullish about our strategy. I think many of you in your reports a couple of years ago probably wouldn't have anticipated that last year with all the PSA that we would have been the second fastest growing competitor. And that's basically the strategy that the team delivered, but more importantly, the execution of it. So I think we had great success and you saw that success continue into Q1 without Voalte.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So, I think the announcement of Voalte was a little earlier than we expected and that's a good thing, obviously. And the initial feedback that my team has shared with me has been very, very positive. Obviously, we're going to start with a rollout where we'll focus a little bit on the users that were part of our clinical trial, and then we'll start to kind of ramp up that as go into the second half of the year. I think the data that was presented at the European Heart Rhythm Meeting was very strong. It stacked up very well against the other products.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Obviously, it's always difficult to compare trial to trial. There's different patients, there's different kind of protocols, but I think in general, data that presented was very strong. And I think the integration here is key. I think we continue to be the market leader in the mapping of PFA cases, at least that's what we saw in Q1. And so, we've got a built in scale and capability here to drive the adoption.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Think that some of the advantages that I think our product has, we talked about not just the integration, but I think the balloon feature is perfect for PVI. A lot of stability, optimizes contact. As I think we've said, not only in conferences, but I also said, we think contact matters and visualization of contact matters. I think there's less muscle contraction, especially with lower anesthesia or the use of just sedation. So anyways, I think the product's going to do really well.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I think it's going to do what we intended it to do. Related to timelines here in The U. S, we'll be reporting data out and we'll be submitting it this year. And I'm very optimistic that we should see an approval. I'm cautioning here, Larry, because I hate giving predictions.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But I'd say right now our timeline is probably beginning of next year. Might be surprised on that, but I think that's a good kind of base case to have. And then the investments in the business is going very well too. I think the teams have done a really good job, not only with the mapping and the infrastructure we have out in the field, but also the and D focus there. We've completed enrollment of our FocalFlex trial for CE Mark, and you know that's combining the RF and the PSA on the Tactiflex catheter.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So, feel good. I feel good about where we are. I feel good about what the team's doing. And as we accelerate the launch of Vault into international markets in the second half of the year, I think I said in the beginning of this year, I think the second half of the year will be better than the first half.

[Larry Biegelsen, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Travis Steed from BofA Securities. Your line is open.

[Travis Steed, Managing Director - Equity Research at Bank of America]

Hey, thanks for taking the question. Just a few follow ups on tariff side. For the few hundred million half year impact, just want to make sure that assumes kind of current rates as they are today. And curious if I assume China is probably the bigger portion of that. I don't if there's any color you could kind of give on how you got to that impact.

[Travis Steed, Managing Director - Equity Research at Bank of America]

And it sounds like you really don't want us kind of to run rate down into '26 yet because you think there's a lot of offsets. And when you think about the offsets, curious, is the Nairobi protocol included in that? Do think kind of the diabetes business fits under that protocol? How much of this can you offset with pricing? Or do think a lot of the offsets are really going to be around moving around manufacturing and changing around the supply chain?

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Yes, sure. I think your question on FX rates, yes, we're making an assumption that on that mitigation as rates are as of today, you can make an argument that some of them have kind of gotten even the dollar's gotten even weaker versus some of them. We're making that assumption. Regarding US and China, I'd say right now on that initial forecast, I'd say that's pretty evenly split. But I think as we think about mitigations more long term, I think we've got opportunities across both of them.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Think one thing that is important to keep in mind is we've always had a view with our manufacturing framework. And like I said, this has been in place for decades. Two key tenants here, Travis. One, align the manufacturing as close as possible to the customer and then have an appropriate amount of redundancy. The advantages of being close to your customer, you can get efficiencies and a lot of cost advantages there.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

It allows you to tap into local talent. But more importantly for us, it's always when you match your infrastructure cost with your revenue, that serves natural hedge against FX. So, doesn't do much to protect the top line, but it definitely helps protect the EPS. And so, a very large percent of our sales here in The U. S.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Are sourced from U. S. Products. And then we try and mitigate risk by spreading that manufacturing network out. So, a good example of that is Libre, for example, where we've got six manufacturing sites for Libre, six, a total of six.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And of those six, two are in The United States. And obviously, those manufacturing in The United States serve The U. S. Demand. And then the other sites outside The United States service OUS demand.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We did that with COVID too, where Binax was made in The U. S. For The U. S. And PanBio was made outside The U.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

S. For international markets. So that's going to allow us to kind of mitigate a lot of this. If we had put all of our manufacturing in Southeast Asia or put all of our manufacturing in Europe, then that might be a little bit more complicated. But we've always had a view of kind of being able to spread it out and mitigate the risks that way.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Tariff wasn't on the list of risks, it provides a lot of maneuverability on this. So, think you mentioned different opportunities to be able to offset impacts. Yeah, you mentioned one, but there are lots of other opportunities to do that and we're looking at all of those. Those help to be more sustainable, but somebody could decide to not want to be part of those agreements. So we've got to really leverage the manufacturing and the manufacturing network that we have if you really want to make it sustainable.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And I think those are the two areas that we're going to be looking at and focusing on those two markets.

[Travis Steed, Managing Director - Equity Research at Bank of America]

Great. Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from David Roman from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

[David Roman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

And good morning. Thank you for all the color here on tariffs, obviously a topic we're watching very closely. Maybe you could switch over to the some of the business performance metrics here. And could you maybe talk to us a little bit about the broader diagnostic strategy here, certainly understanding the unique dynamics of VBP influencing the business in China. But as you think about where you're positioned and how you accelerate this business back toward end market growth, what are the key products that can help you do that?

[David Roman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

And how are you thinking about M and A in this category to support a turn in the growth rate?

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Yeah, sure. Listen, yeah, a little disappointing on the diagnostics side. Yeah, part of it was COVID, but we've also got some improvements to be made here. I'd say specifically in China, David, to your point, mean, we're seeing growth in our business, in our diagnostic business everywhere except China. Outside of China this quarter, we grew around 7%, which has been in line with our Core Lab overall growth rate.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

U. S. Grew 7%. And if you remove kind of the capital piece and just focus on the consumables, it was over 8%. EMEA grew 7%.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Latin America grew mid teens. Our transfusion business grew 7%. So I think we're seeing good performance here. It's really been a challenge here, as I mentioned and as you mentioned, which is China. And it's really price driven on VBPs.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I think if you look at what's happened in other VBPs, at least the ones that we've been part of, when you bid on those businesses, yes, you have a price hit, but you have an offset because you're part of a smaller group of competitors who are picking up volume. This one here was very different in that everybody, all manufacturers stayed on the market, maintained their contracts, but we took these price hits. So we're really here faced with the price hit and no volume offset. So the team is doing a good job right now, I'd say, at navigating this. We're going have to do better in some of the other geographies.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And I know the teams are looking at how to accelerate even more our growth rate in the other markets. It's a delicate balance here also, David. As you probably know, You can get more growth, but you're going to have to place a lot more capital and that's going to hit your gross margin. So we've kind of looked at this being a kind of between a 7% to 9% growth where we can grow above the market and still expand margins. So the team is looking carefully at how to do that, but offset some of that challenge coming out of China.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We're just going to have to go through this. And it's still an important market. It's still got good profitability, but you're just going through the cycle here of VBP that is a little bit different from what we've seen in the past where you don't have the volume offset. Your question on M and A, yes, believe diagnostics is critical to healthcare. Seventy percent of healthcare decisions involve a diagnostic test, which is why we've been investing in this business, talking about expanding our portfolio in the blood bank business with a nucleic acid testing system.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I think that's going to be a great opportunity for our business. We're excited about showing the product to our customers this year and start working on really composing an offering here that you can have both serology and nucleic acid testing with Abbott, combined with all the automation and all the other digital service we provide. We think it's a real strong offering there. Are there opportunities in diagnostics? Yes, sure there are.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I've been public about the areas that we would be looking at in M and A world being medical devices and diagnostics. But we've got opportunities to do that, but we've also got opportunities to do it organically.

[David Roman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

And maybe just a related follow-up on that last point. I think on the last call, it sounded like M and A might become a more important part of your capital allocation strategy. Maybe just update us on how you're thinking about that and any comments on how NEC might be influencing capital deployment priorities?

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Absolutely no impact whatsoever on capital allocation priorities. And update on commentary on M and A. I mean, David, there is no update in the sense that the mindset hasn't shifted, which is, yes, we're looking at opportunities in devices and diagnostics. Yes, we have opportunities to add to our business, got a strong balance sheet to be able to do that. We're going to look at things strategically, we're going to look at things also from a financial lens.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We can be selective in the sense that we feel that we've got a growth model here that allows us to sustain this organic growth rate, this high single digit organic growth rate. So it allows us to ensure that we're not only being strategic about it, but we're also being disciplined about how we're thinking about it. As I said, ROIC matters to us. Profitability matters for us. Think even more important in today's environment, protecting your EPS, protecting your profitability, think an important at least for us, it's going to be important.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Regarding an update on M and A thoughts, there's no update on our thinking, on our framework.

[David Roman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Great, thanks so much.

[Operator]

Yeah. Thank you. Our next question will come from Vijay Kumar from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

[Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Hey, guys. Congrats on a nice sprint here, thanks for taking my question. Robert, just on maybe the top line here. The 7.5% to 8.5 organic, which is that's pretty impressive considering the macro. What drives the back half acceleration rate when we look at Q1 starting point of 7%?

[Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Are we looking at Volt as stepping up or is this China, which is assuming China improves in the back half? Maybe walk us through it from Q1.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Yes. I mean, think it's when we guided back in January, Vijay, we kind of guided to this second half better than first half. And there's a couple of things there. First of all, I think you've got the impact of new kind of product launches kind of ramping up. And that obviously contributes to the growth rate in the second half.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

You mentioned one product, that's one. But as you're familiar with our pipeline, we've got a lot of recently launched products that as you go scaling up, that scale goes building and then it goes accelerating. So, think that's a key driver. And then the second part, I'd say, is comps. If you remember, the VBP really started to really impact us kind of last year Q3, Q4.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So I expect that lapping some those kind of VBP components in diagnostics will be a contributor. And then if you remember also last year in Q3, we had some challenges in our nutrition business, just some commercial execution challenges that we a pretty big significant kind of drop in our nutrition, in our international nutrition business. And team has been making good progress there in terms of regaining the share in some of those markets. And so that's the other component, I would say. These are two pretty big comps.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So if you look at Q3, that was a pretty low point, I'd say, our nutrition business in the year. So that's at a high level how the math works.

[Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Understood. And maybe one on the gross margins here. Think the prior guide, you assume perhaps 60 to 80 basis points step up. Is the guess the tariff is that hitting gross margin? Is that a COGS impact?

[Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

How should we think about gross margins here for the back half?

[Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO at Abbott Laboratories]

Yes, Vijay, it's Phil. And yes, exactly what you highlighted here. We guided a strong gross margin into the year after nice sequential growth each quarter last year and very pleased with Q1 delivering on that actually being a little bit better than what we had modeled or forecasted here along with the benefit of the FX movement here. That those help serve as some of the offsets to the tariffs, which would largely be felt in the gross margin.

[Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Got it. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question will come from Joanne Wuensch from Citi. Your line is open.

[Joanne Wuensch., Managing Director at Citi]

Good morning and thanks for taking the question and all of the information. I'd like to pivot a little bit to some of the products and, particularly the, IVL product, which, you announced you've begun clinical trials for. And on a second question, some of your structural heart products, this is another quarter of double digit revenue growth in that segment. That would be great. Thank you so much.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Sure. It's great to talk about products a little bit, Joanne. So thanks about that. Yes, so your first question on IVL, listen, this isn't we're excited to enter this category. This is a $1,000,000,000 opportunity right now.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We think we see there's a lot of growth. If you remember, this asset came to us through the CSI acquisition that we did a few years ago. So we saw this as like a really interesting asset that was in there that we could kind of add value. Team's been working on it and it's great to see that we started to enroll patients in the trial. It's too early to think about kind of timelines here, like precise timelines from a quarterly perspective.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But I expect to complete enrollment of this trial next year and file for approval next year. I think the catheter that we put into the trial is being viewed as very easy to deliver and seems like a great tool here to treat severe calcifications. So I've gotten early data on kind of the first cases. They seem to all go very well. Praise from the interventionalists on the deliverability of it.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And I think that's always an important part given our experience in the world of stents. Deliverability is super important. So, that seems like it's hitting the mark there. And then we also know that there's obviously peripheral market for this. If you think about our portfolio in our vascular business, this would complement it also very well.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So I know the team's working on peripheral program there too and we'll provide updates on that as we progress. But yes, excited about the opportunity. I think it's going to be a meaningful growth driver here for our vascular business, which we've already started to see an improvement on the growth rate. And this will obviously help sustain it. Yes, on your question on Structural Heart, yes, 15% growth.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We've always talked about, Joanne, this being like moving away from being a single product company in MitraClip to be a full portfolio product. And the investments that we made in R and during those years post integration of St. Jude and really kind of building a best in class portfolio here, I think is going to pay off. It's paying off now and I think it's going to pay off long term also. Navitor is doing really well.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We've talked about the opportunities that we have in TAVR. Good share gains in Europe, and looking forward to see this investment that we've been making in The U. S. In terms of building our commercial presence, expanding it, looking forward to see that team be able to start to really gain momentum as we progress throughout the year. Keep in mind, we're only in twenty five percent of the cases twenty five percent of the implanting hospitals here in The U.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

S. So I think there's a great opportunity for us there. And then TriClip is another one that's been doing very well. The launch continues to go super. In terms of market share, I think TRICLIF here is now clearly the preferred option.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Safety plays a major role in deciding what to choose. And, the safety record here is pretty excellent, not just in the clinical trials, but also in the real world. So, I expect this to annualize at around a quarter of a billion dollars, but really gaining a lot of momentum as we exit the year for a couple of things. One, we were launching a next generation of the CLIP, and it's going to further enhance the ease of use. It simplifies all of the prep work.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I've been to a couple of cases, and it's not a pain point, but it's just a nice thing to have to be able to reduce some of that device prep work before. So, I think the team's done a really good job there. We obviously saw the CMS has published their NCD. I expect that to hit mid year, and that's another great opportunity. But the two year data, I think, was pretty significant at ACC and really showed I know there's a lot of question marks about the endpoint a year ago, but that really wasn't powered for one year.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And you're starting to see now the benefits on that hard data come out. I think that plays a huge role when you've got the safety and you've got the hard endpoint. So all in all, I think the Structural Heart business is going to continue to be in these teen growth rates. And we've got opportunities for international expansion too. And then plus all the R and D work that's ongoing, whether it's balloon expandable, next generation MitraClip, next generation TriClip, next generation Angulith.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

It's just really stacked up, and the team's doing a good job. So, looking forward for that business to continue to be a contributor in the next few years.

[Joanne Wuensch., Managing Director at Citi]

Excellent. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Jennings from TD Cowen. Your line is open.

[Joshua Jennings, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Robert, I was hoping to maybe a little bit early for this, but I was hoping you could share either what Abbott is doing individually or plans to do along with conjunction with Avamed and industry to potentially seek exemptions in The US, China, Europe? And should investors hold out hope that exemptions for the medical devices industry specifically could be secured?

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Hey, Josh. Mean, you know Abbott. Hope is not a strategy for us, so I would stick away from that. But are we talking with industry association, sharing data, sharing information? I think the key thing here is always just getting some of the facts and the data is always important.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And I think that that's obviously an opportunity that exists to least make sure that everybody who's making decisions are aware of the facts and the data and the implications. So, are we actively involved with AdvaMed? Yes, we are. But I also think that we have to understand what the data is and have to understand what the implications. I'd say at the highest level, the medtech industry, and you guys know this, is whatever $6,750,000,000,000 kind of industry.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

U. S. Companies have a very high share of that global industry around at least over 50%. So, think it is in the interest of The U. S.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

To make sure that we protect the innovation, that we protect the investment in R and D. A lot of the manufacturing in medtech is done, I would say, mostly in The US already. So, yes, there's opportunities to have conversations, and that's part of our strategy, but hope is not one of them. So, we're working through weekends and thinking about how we're going to do this on a long term basis here.

[Joshua Jennings, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Understood. Thanks for that. And then just one follow-up. I know the macro conditions are evolving rapidly. There have been some events, Abbott specifically with the neck litigation over the past twelve months.

[Joshua Jennings, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Just was hoping for an update on how you and your team are thinking about the diversified model at Abbott. It served the company well for decades, but any updates just on the potential to unlock value number of other competitors have been either divesting or spinning out business units. But I was hoping to get your thoughts here in early twenty twenty five.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Sure. I mean, threw a couple things in there. The fact that we have this ongoing litigation on NET doesn't necessarily kind of lead us down a path of whether businesses are here to drive are driving value or not. So I'm going to move the litigation piece aside here to be quite honest with you. Listen, we've always looked at the value of our diversification and what it does.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

It provides a lot of shots on goal as long as you're in the right places. It provides a lot of shots on goal. And then it allows us to manage through moments of uncertainty in the global market. And I made reference to that in my opening statements. And we've shown plenty of examples of how that model has actually helped us.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

The key thing here is, are these businesses operating at the highest level? And are we driving the value through them? I mean, you guys can do some of the parts. I think that we're pretty fairly valued, I guess, if you were to kind of do that analysis. There's always going be a bit of a disconnect there.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But I think we're operating these businesses, each at the highest level. And I think they provide us with a strategic advantage that very few healthcare companies have. We have a unique perch where we get to see the entire spectrum of healthcare through nutrition, through diagnostics, through pharmaceuticals, through medical technologies and we think that's a competitive advantage. But we look at our portfolio always on an ongoing basis. We continue to evaluate whether there's opportunities to create value.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I talked about these questions we ask ourselves. Is there an opportunity to create value? And is there somebody else that could be a better owner of our business? And for me right now, those two questions are no, they're not. And we just gotta keep driving and executing.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

But I think you've seen us as a company. We've engaged in these probably long before. These were the portfolio moves, I'd say, that we're seeing right now. You've to ask yourself some of these moves. Have they created value to shareholders?

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

So I think that's always a fundamental question.

[Joshua Jennings, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Thanks a lot, Robert.

[Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations. at Abbott Laboratories]

Operator, we'll take one more question, please.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our last question will come from Marie Thibault from BTIG. Your line is open.

[Marie Thibault, Managing Director at BTIG]

Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. I wanted to ask a question here on Rhythm Management. I think this is the second or third quarter that we've seen really strong results, particularly in The U. S.

[Marie Thibault, Managing Director at BTIG]

And I assume some of this is because of AVAIR. Can you catch us up to date on where we are in terms of the rollout, some of the new data we might be seeing at HRS on left bundle branch and some of the other opportunities we should be seeing there in AVER? Thanks.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Yeah, thanks Marie. Listen, think AVERI remains probably one of the most underappreciated opportunities here in our portfolio. I think rarely do you have an opportunity to completely change the standard of care. And I predict that we're going to see that standard of care change at least in the pacing market next five years. I think that the majority of this market be leadless.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I'd say that the key thing for us was to think about, okay, if we think that this is going to be a complete change in paradigm and standard of care, we've got to make sure that we build strong enough foundation for that to happen. It is a different implant technique that physicians have been accustomed to, have been trained for decades. So, as I've said, we were going to go I guess you could say we're to go a little slower to go fast, if you can argue what we've been doing. I think this will probably exit the year at about $05,000,000,000 So, I think the teams have done a really good job at establishing that foundation. We've seen an increase in accounts, so we've increased our accounts by about 50%.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

The amount of physicians that have been trained have been increased by 50%. We've more than doubled the amount of implants per day we're doing. That's not just the expansion of new accounts, but we've actually seen a 30% increase in the monthly implants of the early adopters. So not only are we increasing the penetration to new accounts, but we're also seeing deeper penetration and usage in the accounts that we've already opened. So that gives me confidence that, on the statement that I made that I think this is going to be a complete change in category.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And so much so that we've been obviously investing from an R and D perspective on next generation leadless products. We're going to have a next generation version come out, we're working on that's going to increase the battery life by about 25%. So that's going to be good and important as we think about more increased penetration, younger population implants. And then we also talked about developing a leadless conduction system pacing product. This has got a breakthrough designation by the FDA.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

I'm not going to get too ahead of me in terms of HRS, what you'll see, but our goal is to start the pivotal trial for this product in 2026. So, the point here is we believe this is going to fundamentally change. We've made the investments to prepare the market, train the market, condition the market, and we're also making investments in the pipeline also, because we believe that's where the standard is going to go. So, I think if you looked at our CRM business, you're seeing the impact of that strategy, which is, okay, this has been a business that historically has been flat from our perspective in a single digit kind of growth market over the last couple of years. Thank you for pointing that out.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

We've been growing around 7%. And I think it's really part of the strategy. So we look forward to HRS. We look forward to what we're going to be presenting across the entire EP portfolio, not just on the CRM side, on the structural side and also on the ablation side. So, think we're going to have a real good HRS and good data there too.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

Listen, I'll just I get that there's a lot of questions on tariffs. We've been doing a lot of work, a lot of modeling, but more important, a lot of ways to think about how to mitigate the impacts. Part of my push to the team and push to myself, quite frankly, is we need to figure out how to do this in a way that's sustainable and not just using gap closers, which we will use for sure, but how do we make this more sustainable? I found it interesting we did not get a single Libre question, so you guys are very concerned on tariffs and macro, but all good there. We've had a good start to the year and I anticipate that that momentum is going to continue.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

The gross margin and the operating margin expansion is very important and I think it's even more important now with the dynamics that we're in. But we're not doing that at the expense of a pipeline. Pipeline continues to provide great new growth opportunities. And like I said, I think the diversified model here, I think to Josh's question, I think it serves us very well. There's a lot of moving pieces, maybe to Robbie's point, but our job here is to translate all that complexity and all those moving pieces into sustained and reliable growth and performance, which was what we've been doing and what we're going to continue to do, which is why we've reaffirmed our guidance here.

[Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Abbott Laboratories]

And so, we look forward to updating you guys as we go through the year. So, with that, I'll wrap up and, thank you for joining us.

[Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations. at Abbott Laboratories]

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for your questions. This now concludes Abbott's conference call. A webcast replay of this call will be available after 11AM Central Time today on Abbott's Investor Relations website at abbottinvestor.com. Thank you for joining us today.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Michael Comilla, Vice President of Investor Relations.
• Robert Ford, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
• Phil Boudreau, Executive Vice President & CFO

Analysts

• Robert Marcus, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase
• Larry Biegelsen, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Travis Steed, Managing Director - Equity Research at Bank of America
• David Roman, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
• Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI
• Joanne Wuensch., Managing Director at Citi
• Joshua Jennings, Managing Director at TD Cowen
• Marie Thibault, Managing Director at BTIG