Abbott Laboratories, which employs almost 3000 people in Ireland, reported a slightly better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by higher sales of its branded generics.

Sales at Abbott’s three largest businesses - nutritional products, diagnostic products and pharmaceutical products - rose in the second quarter, helping the company reaffirm its full-year profit forecast.

The acquisition of Chile’s CFR Pharmaceuticals in September helped Abbott’s branded generics business, which was the biggest boost to revenue in the three months ended June 30th.

Sales in the company’s established pharmaceutical products business, which includes branded generics, rose 31.3 per cent to $977 million, excluding the impact of currency.

The unit accounted for 19 per cent of Abbott’s total quarterly revenue of $5.17 billion, which was up about 2 per cent from a year earlier.

The drugmaker’s net income rose to $786 million, or 52 cents per share, from $466 million, or 30 cents per share.

The results included a $207 million pre-tax gain from the sale of Mylan shares, which it got when it sold a part of its branded pharmaceutical products portfolio to Mylan a year ago.

Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 50 cents per share and revenue of $5.15 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Reuters