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ST. JUDE, J&J REPORT HIGHER THIRD QUARTER SALES

October 18, 2005

Large device firms St. Jude Medical and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) have reported higher third quarter earnings, reflecting strong demand for their cardiac device products.

St. Jude Medical recently reported net sales of $738 million for the third quarter, an increase of 28 percent over the $578 million reported in the third quarter last year. The firm's third quarter sales of high-voltage cardiac rhythm management products were $277 million, a 68 percent increase over the comparable 2004 quarter, the firm said.

The results reflect market share gains in St. Jude's implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) product portfolio, which now accounts for roughly 19 to 20 percent of the global ICD market. Third quarter pacemaker sales were $231 million, an increase of 6 percent from the same 2004 quarter. And atrial fibrillation product sales for the third quarter totaled $63 million, a 66 percent increase over the same period last year.

Sales of St. Jude's cardiology products, including vascular sealing devices, were $105 million, a 12 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004. But cardiac surgery product sales were $62 million, a decrease of 3 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. And sales of heart valve products were roughly $58 million, down 2 percent compared with the third quarter last year.

Meanwhile, J&J announced third quarter sales of $12.3 billion, an increase of 6.6 percent over the same 2004 quarter. J&J's global medical devices and diagnostics sales totaled $4.6 billion, an increase of 14.3 over the same 2004 quarter. By contrast, J&J's pharmaceutical sales for the quarter were $5.5 billion, a decrease of 0.5 percent over the same period last year.

J&J unit Cordis, which makes the Cypher drug-eluting stent, was key contributor to the device segment results, J&J said. Cordis's sales grew 32 percent to $994 million in the quarter. Also contributing to the strong performance, J&J said, was DePuy's orthopedic joint reconstruction and spinal products, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics' professional diagnostic products and Vistakon's disposable contact lenses.