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

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Robert Ford: Sure. On your question on TriClip, yes, so we submitted to the FDA for review earlier this year. It’s my understanding that CMS is going to review this in parallel also. I think I made a comment to this last time, we’ll likely see a panel review here, and I don’t think it’s unexpected to be quite honest with you. A lot of the novel therapies go through an advisory panel process with TAVR — with MitraClip. So I expect that to be the case here for TriClip. Right now, the expectation of that panel is, I said the date that we think we have right now is January, but we’ll have to see how that occurs. But again, I don’t — the fact that we’ll probably go through a panel, I still feel very enthusiastic and confident about the opportunity that we have with TriClip.

Not only this is — these are patients that are in real rough shape and there is not a lot of treatment options. And we’ve shown in the TRILUMINATE study that we can reduce TR and our understanding and our belief is that reduction of TR is important, and we’ll be going through that. And then I’d say the safety profile of the TriClip product is very important as you think about building a new category and a new area, but you’ve got 5 million people here, Matt, that suffered from TR globally. I believe this is a $1 billion-plus opportunity for sure, and we’re committed to building a real strong position on here with innovation on the product and strong clinical evidence to support it. What was your other question?

Matt Miksic: Closed-loop integration with Tandem and maybe the ramp or expectations for that process?

Robert Ford: Yes, it’s my understanding here that we’ll see a launch sometime by the end of this year with Tandem. And we’re excited about that. There’s about 150,000 to 200,000 new pump users globally. So I think this is an area that we’ve historically haven’t been a player in, and now we will be a player in. We’ve launched an AID system in Europe, let’s say, more towards the end of last year into this year, and I was reviewing the results of the team. I mean that pump company has had tremendous kind of growth partnering with us. And so that’s a proof point there that when you bring in the choice and the option and you put it together with Libre that there’s a real strong value proposition to connecting the pump with Libre.

And then as I’ve said, we want to be a leader in this space, not just be a competitor. So there’s a lot of work ongoing right now with our dual analyte glucose ketone sensor, which we believe there’s a lot of applications there, Matt, but I think one of the clear applications and value propositions is to be able to kind of pair that with an insulin pump and have a much more richer algorithm and safety algorithm in the insulin delivery system. So we feel good about that.

Mike Comilla: Operator, we will take one more question please.

Operator: Thank you. And our last question will come from Jayson Bedford from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Jayson Bedford: Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just a couple of quick ones. First, what is the updated expectation for COVID testing revenue here in 2023? And then second one, Robert, you alluded to gross margin expansion in 2024. Can you just frame the sources of gross margin? I assume nutrition is a key driver there. And then maybe just bigger picture, and I appreciate that everyone in the industry is facing these challenges. But is there visibility into clawing back to pre-COVID gross margin levels? Thanks.

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