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Abbott Labs: We’ve Shipped 1.4 Billion Covid Tests Since Pandemic’s Beginning

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Abbott Laboratories has shipped more than 1.4 billion tests since the start of the pandemic, the company said Wednesday.

Sales of diagnostic tests for Covid-19 have been a huge profit and sales boost to Abbott, which Wednesday reported fourth quarter 2021 earnings that beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations. Abbott reported fourth-quarter net income of $1.98 billion on revenues of nearly $11.5 billion, which were up 7%, as worldwide diagnostic sales and revenue from the company’s diverse portfolio of medical devices and other healthcare products also grew.

"Covid testing was a big part of the story, but not all of it," Abbott chairman and chief executive officer Robert Ford told analysts on a call Wednesday morning to discuss earnings.

Abbott’s global Covid-19 testing sales hit $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter and the bulk of that, or $2.1 billion, came from Abbott’s family of rapid tests: BinaxNOW, Panbio and ID NOW. “Worldwide diagnostics sales increased 2.9 percent on a reported basis in the fourth quarter and increased 3.3 percent on an organic basis,” Abbott said in its fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings report.

Looking ahead, Abbott is forecasting $2.5 billion in Covid-19 related testing sales for this year, according to the company’s full year 2022 guidance released Wednesday. On a call with analysts to discuss earnings, Ford cautioned those sales would be early in the year based on an “initial” projection and the company would update that project on a quarterly basis.

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