Can Structural Heart Strength Aid Abbott (ABT) Q3 Earnings?

Abbott’s (NYSE:ABT) Structural Heart business has been gaining a strong traction of late on the back of innovations.

We expect this strength to get reflected in third-quarter 2019 results, which are scheduled for release on Oct 16 before the market opens.

Click here to know how the company’s overall Q3 performance is expected to be.

Structural Heart in Focus

Abbott’s Structural Heart business consistently maintained an impressive top-line performance in recent times. The company has been grabbing attention for developments in its flagship, market leading device to treat mitral regurgitation — MitraClip. This upside is likely to reflect on the upcoming quarterly release.

In the last reported quarter, this business witnessed a surge of more than 30% in global sales that also soared above 50% in the United States. With MitraClip’s new expanded indication, we expect this trend to have continued in the third quarter as well. To be precise, in July 2019, Abbott achieved an FDA approval for the fourth-generation MitraClip device with enhanced features and new clip sizes.

Further, in September, the company announced gaining a CE Mark for two new structural heart devices in Europe. These are the Masters HP 15mm rotatable mechanical heart valve and the Amplatzer Piccolo Occluder, both appropriate for treating pediatric heart patients. This pioneering approach to paediatric heart treatment has undoubtedly broadened Abbott’s structural heart portfolio. We expect the company’s top line to reflect this gain in the to-be-reported results.

Additionally, Abbott’s structural heart product line has a robust pipeline of technologies and development including Tendyne and Cephea to replace faulty mitral heart valves. Further, there is TriClip, a first-of-its-kind device for the repair of a leaky tricuspid heart valve, and Amplatzer Amulet, the company’s left atrial appendage device to reduce the risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. We expect these to have once again registered a strong top-line contribution in the third quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate of $379 million for Structural Heart revenues also indicates a rise of 24.3% from the year-ago reported figure.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Abbott carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the same space are as follows:

Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKCA) has an Earnings ESP of +18.18% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) has an Earnings ESP of +1.97% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) has an Earnings ESP of +5.50% and a Zacks Rank of 3.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1%, and +98.3%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year.

See their latest picks free >>