Medical device firm’s Q1 profits up

Medtronic, the world’s biggest maker of heart-rhythm devices, said first-quarter profit climbed 5.2% as doctors embraced the company’s newest drug-coated stent to prop open clogged arteries.

Net income in the three months ended Jul 27 increased to $864m (€685m), or 83c a share, from $821m, or 77 cents, a year earlier, the Minneapolis-based company said. Profit excluding one-time items of 85c a share matched the average of 22 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue increased to $4.01bn from $3.95bn a year earlier.

Doctors favoured Medtronic’s Resolute stent, approved in the US in February, helping sales of the company’s drug-eluting stents to increase 36% on a constant currency basis.

Demand for spinal products and implanted devices used to regulate the heart’s electrical activity, two of the company’s biggest units, declined at a slower pace than last year when questions arose about safety and excess use.

“Overall, this was a solid quarter and Medtronic continues to deliver on its guidance,” said Michael Matson, a New York-based analyst at Mizuho Securities USA. “Cardiovascular and spine sales were better than expected,” with demand for defibrillators and spinal products showing signs of stabilisation, he said.

The company reiterated its earnings forecast for fiscal 2013 of $3.62 to $3.70 a share.

Medtronic is in Ireland since 1999, employing close to 2,000 in Galway and Dublin. Their state-of-the-art facility in Galway is a centre of excellence for the development and manufacture of a number of the company’s key medical technologies for the treatment and management of cardiovascular and cardiac rhythm disease.

Medtronic also has a sales and shared service office in Dublin supporting key businesses including cardiac rhythm disease management, neuromodulation, spinal and biologics, diabetes, cardiovascular, and ear, nose, and throat.

— Bloomberg