• by Les Luchter , October 18, 2023

In third quarter earnings released Wednesday, Abbott Laboratories reported continued soaring sales of its Freestyle Libre diabetes device, a near return-to-normal in its infant formula business, and, as expected, plummeting sales for COVID testing.

Sales of the Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitor rose 28% year-over-year to $1.4 billion. There are now 5 million users worldwide, including nearly 2 million in the U.S. “where the Libre base has nearly doubled in the last two years,” chief executive officer Robert Ford said during an earnings call.

What’s more, Ford revealed, diabetics’ use of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic is increasing Freestyle Libre use. “A recent analysis of our U.S. user based showed that a growing number of Libre users are using it in combination with GLP-1 medication as part of a companion therapy approach,” he explained, which  led to higher rates of use for both products.

Ford noted that Abbott has been gathering data on Libre users since the device’s launch in 2017 and now has “close to 50 billion hours of glucose monitoring data.” With Abbott’s specialties spanning nutrition, diagnostics and treatment, the company could help offset such GLP-1 side effects as muscle mass loss by, for example, developing a nutritional product “to help address” the latter condition, he said.

Abbott continues to project Libre as a $10 billion business by 2028.

Meanwhile, the wearable technology used for Libre is being put to use in Abbott’s new Lingo product, which monitors such other factors as ketones and lactate, providing insights on weight loss and athletic performance respectively.

Lingo is having a controlled launch in the U.K., Ford said, with a “full on” U.K. launch coming next year, and U.S. filing to the FDA by the end of this year.

Turning to nutritional products, nearly two years since its shutdown of a manufacturing plant for such infant formulas like Similac led to nationwide shortages in the category, Abbott’s pediatric nutrition sales rose 25% in the quarter. This was led by market share gains in the U.S., Ford told analysts, saying that Abbott returned to its number-one share position in the category in September and is now “about 90% back to pre-recall market share” and expects to be back at 100% by year’s end.

Adult nutrition sales rose 12%, driven by “strong demand” for Abbotts Ensure and Glucerna brands, Ford said.

Overall, Abbott’s organic sales in the third quarter decreased 1.5% to $10.1 billion, due to the expected decline in COVID test sales, which should still reach $1.5 billion for all of 2023, according to Phil Boudreau, chief financial officer. Taking COVID out of the picture, sales rose 13.8%, he said.

The COVID decline has helped Abbott’s other diagnostic testing business, which Ford said grew 10% YOY, “helped by a strong recovery of our blood transfusion testing business, following a period of lower plasma donations that occurred during the pandemic.”

And, even sans COVID, Ford attributed double-digit growth in rapid diagnostics testing to “increased demand for respiratory tests in anticipation of an earlier-than-normal start to the flu season in the Northern hemisphere.”