Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 6 of 10

And as the COVID testing numbers come down, you get to see that a little bit more now. So I feel good about delivering that, In 2024, yes, there’s a macro environment that’s out there. But as it relates to all the elements that are directly in our control, I feel very good about it. Your comment on electrophysiology, yes, we’ll have competition. We have competition today. We grew — in Europe, we grew mid-teens and we’ve been growing mid-teens for the first nine months with the competition that you referred to. So we feel good about our position there. On MitraClip, we’ve seen double-digit growth in MitraClip for the last three quarters, big driver of that has been international and growth international, and we’re starting to see a little bit now of a rebound in U.S. U.S. was up 5% in MitraClip this quarter.

And again, that’s sequentially better from the previous quarter and sequentially better from the one before that. So — and we’ve had competition in that space also we’ve had competition internationally and we’ve had competition in the U.S., too. So again, you referred to comps, yes, there’s — listen, I’m not going to deny there’s some comps. Obviously, probably the biggest one there is nutrition this year. But every year, there’s comps. Every year, a company has got comps. And I’d say if you remove some of those comps from our Q3 we would still be growing double digits also. So again, I feel good about our high single-digit growth forecast. I feel good about our double-digit EPS growth. We’ve got a lot to work with. Yes, there’s challenges, but we have a lot to work with.

We’ve got a great pipeline of products that we’re going to be — that we’ve not only just launched, but that we’re going to be launching also. So yes, there’s always puts and takes, Danielle. But I think in the aggregate, if you look at the aggregate of our positions in these markets, I think we’re in a real strong position.

Danielle Antalffy: That is super helpful. Thank you so much Robert.

Operator: Our next question will come from Joanne Wuensch from Citibank. Your line is open.

Joanne Wuensch: Good morning and thank you for the question. Nutrition, your comments, if I remember them correctly, are that you are back in a leadership position in the nutrition business. Are you back at 100%? Are you humming along? Do you feel like there’s anything that’s lagging or maybe ahead of the game? And I’m going to squeeze in your current thoughts on M&A, particularly given a lot of pullbacks in valuations. Thank you.

Robert Ford: Sure. We never believe that we were going to recover all the share in a quarter, right? So the way this market works and the way we’ve kind of modeled it out is that, we’ll be showing month-by-month kind of sequential increases in our market share. So, if you look at the volume right now is measured by a third party, we’ve now crossed over that leadership position in the month of September. We’re not 100% back to where we were before the recall, but I always said that we would be there towards the end of the year. So we’re probably at about 90% back to that initial — to that pre-recall market share. But it’s nice to see across all the segments here, real nice sustained growth in our market share. And even if when you look at different segments of the IMF, so if you look at the channels, WIC and non-WIC.

WIC, we’ve been a market leader since the beginning of the year, and that was a result of our strategy in the second half of last year to stay focused on that underserved population. And the non-WIC channel, we’re seeing nice continuous month-by-month gains of market share. And I think the team is doing a real good job. I think we can all see that the shelves are pretty well replenished right now. And now it’s just about continuing to execute on our demand generation and I feel good about what the team is doing and recovering that market share. So that’s gone pretty much to plan there. And then what was your other question?

Page 6 of 10