Johnson & Johnson's first-quarter profit dipped due to slightly higher spending and a bigger tax bill, but the health care giant gave a rosier financial forecast for the year.
The world's biggest maker of health care products cited its pending $30 billion purchase of biopharmaceutical company Actelion for the raised forecast. It also benefited from several smaller acquisitions and improved results from a medical device business that it's restructuring.
The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company on Tuesday reported net income of $4.42 billion, or $1.61 per share, down from $4.46 billion, or $1.59 per share, a year earlier. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions and amortization costs, came to $1.83 per share.
That beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.77 per share.
Revenue totaled $17.77 billion in the period, which missed Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $18.01 billion.
International sales jumped 2.8 percent to $8.4 billion, while U.S. sales edged up 0.6 percent to $9.4 billion.
Sales were led by the Tylenol maker's pharmaceutical business, with sales up 0.8 percent to $8.3 billion.
Consumer product sales rose 1 percent to $3.3 billion, while sales of medical devices and diagnostic equipment increased 3 percent to $6.3 billion.
Johnson & Johnson said it now expects full-year earnings in the range of $7 to $7.15 per share, up from its January forecast of $6.93 to $7.08 per share, and revenue in the range of $75.4 billion to $76.1 billion, up from $74.1 billion to $74.8 billion. The company said it raised the forecast due to the estimated impact of sales from its planned acquisition of Actelion, which is expected to close this quarter.
Johnson & Johnson shares have risen 9 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed almost 5 percent. The stock has climbed 14 percent in the last 12 months.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on JNJ at https://www.zacks.com/ap/JNJ
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