ABT Shareholder/Stockholder Letter Transcript:
2024 ANNUAL REPORT
Abbott
FRONT COVER:
Trinity Lindblade
WALKERSVILLE, MARYLAND, USA
FREESTYLE LIBRE 3 SYSTEM
FreeStyle Libre 3 system
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Letter to Shareholders
5 The Abbott we have built
6 Delivering now
8 Designing what s next
10 Neuromodulation
12 Structural Heart
14 Electrophysiology
16 Vascular
18 Cardiac Rhythm Management
20 Heart Failure Management
22 Diabetes Care
24 Biowearables
26 Nutrition
28 Medicines
30 Rapid Diagnostics
32 Laboratory Diagnostics
34 Passion and purpose
36 Financial Report
Her mother knew early in her life that something
in Trinity s body wasn t working right. When
Trinity was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, it
started a journey to a better understanding of the
impact of food and exercise on her health.
Abbott is a global healthcare leader, with
114,000 employees serving people in more than
160 countries. We have balanced leadership
across diverse markets and geographies with
businesses and products in medical devices,
diagnostics, nutritionals, and medicines giving
us more ways to succeed and greater resilience
as markets and economies evolve.
Our unwavering focus on helping people get
healthy and stay that way, at all stages of life, has
helped us deliver consistent, sustainable growth
and shareholder returns.
DEAR FELLOW SHAREHOLDER:
Few companies can demonstrate the full range
of benefits that business brings to society as
powerfully as Abbott. Our performance in
2024 embodied that broad value and the many
strengths that make it possible.
ROBERT FORD
Chairman of the Board and
Chief Executive Officer
ABBOT T 2024 ANNUAL REP ORT
A HEALTHY BAL ANCE
If Abbott doesn t succeed as a business, it cannot succeed
as an agent of progress.
One of the best-known axioms in politics is, It s the
economy, stupid. It s a pragmatic reminder to focus on
what matters most to people and to society. And if the
key to politics comes down to the economy, the economy
itself comes down to business, which represents the great
majority of all human economic activity. Business accounts
for more than 70 percent of GDP and a similar percentage
of employment, and more than two-thirds of all research
and development spending, in the U.S. and other OECD
countries. And the prosperity it creates flows into all sectors
of the economy and every aspect of our society.
To ensure that we can successfully balance this equation,
we ve rethought the reward for innovation. Traditionally,
healthcare has delivered high innovation, but at a cost
that has resulted in lower access to the breakthroughs it s
created. We believe that the leading healthcare companies of
the future will be those that can help the most people solve
not only the medical problem, but the access problem, as
well. Our strategy is to innovate for access, designing every
stage of the product process first in conception, then by
bending the cost curve through advanced manufacturing,
AI, and digitization to maximize the number of people
around the world who can benefit from our advancements.
Companies help form the bedrock of our communities by
providing employment, healthcare, taxes, philanthropic
support, growth and sustainability. They not only create and
supply the vital products and services that people rely on to
live their lives, but they also drive the innovation that leads
to continual improvement in the human standard of living.
Because of the broad and rapid expansion of our innovations,
over the past five years, Abbott s sales have grown by
$10 billion, or almost one-third, and pre-tax profits by
almost $3 billion, or 43 percent.* Over the same period,
we ve returned more than $25 billion to shareholders
through dividends and share repurchase. In 2024 Abbott
again successfully achieved this balance, serving both its
purpose and its shareholders, delivering the products people
need as well as strong returns as a business.
In healthcare, business takes the advances forged by science,
fashions them into solutions, and brings them to the world.
That s Abbott s purpose: helping people live fuller lives
through our healthcare products and technologies. Our
company has thrived for 137 years because it has done this
consistently and with a rare degree of success. As a result,
Abbott improves the lives of not only our own large direct
community our 114,000 employees around the world and
their families, our retirees, our investors but the larger
communities of which they re part and, most importantly,
the vast community of people we serve in more than 160
countries around the world.
OUR MODEL IN ACTION
It was, in many ways, a model year for Abbott. All of our
major businesses delivered strong results. Our business
diversity can provide defensive advantages against
challenges in specific markets; but 2024 was all offense, with
robust and well-balanced growth across the board.
And balance is the keynote to our performance and our
outlook, as we maintain a dynamic equilibrium of delivering
results and rewarding our shareholders in the present, with
investing for the future to maintain our growth and success
for the long term.
To keep advancing human health, Abbott must first
maintain our success as a company specifically, a public
company with obligations to the shareholders who own
it. We work to continuously balance this equation,
providing public goods through private enterprise.
CONTINUED, CONSIS TENT G ROW TH IN 2024
2
$42B
9.6%
$4.67
WORLDWIDE
SALES
ORGANIC SALES
GROWTH, UNDERLYING
BASE BUSINESS
ADJUSTED
DILUTED EPS
* On a non-GAAP basis On a GAAP basis, full-year Abbott sales increased 4.6% Full-year 2024 GAAP diluted EPS was $7.64
For full financial data and reconciliation of non-GAAP measures, please see Abbott s 2024 earnings releases at www.abbottinvestor.com
ABBOT T 2024 ANNUAL REP ORT
Strong Financial Performance
Abbott s global sales in the year were $42 billion, which
reflects an increase of 9.6% on an organic basis for the base
business. Adjusted earnings per share were $4.67. All four
of our major businesses contributed to our year-over-year
growth, and each of them delivered accelerated quarterto-quarter growth to close out the year, positioning our
company very well for a successful 2025.
In the year, Abbott completed a full century of
uninterrupted returns to investors when it paid its 400th
consecutive quarterly dividend. And our dividends
have risen in each of the last 53 years, earning Abbott
membership in the exclusive ranks of Dividend Kings.
Continuing this legacy, in December we announced a
dividend increase of 7.3 percent for 2025.
We are sharply focused on raising our gross margin levels.
Thanks to the outstanding execution of the teams we ve
dedicated to this effort across the company, we succeeded
in raising our profile by 70 basis points on an adjusted basis
in 2024, despite the headwinds of inflation and foreign
exchange. We intend to deliver a similar increase this year.
Investing for the Future
While delivering those strong returns, since 2019 we ve
simultaneously raised investment in research and
development by more than 20 percent, to $2.7 billion,# and
capital investment by 35 percent to fuel sustained growth
and impact.
Innovation
With R&D centers around the world, we are better able
to tailor our products to the needs of local markets. And
we augment our strong internal pipeline through our
Ventures group, which has invested more than $200 million
in a promising portfolio of new growth opportunities.
Together, these efforts have produced a strong long-term
pipeline that delivered more than 150 new approvals,
launches, line extensions, and treatment indications in 2024.
Among the most notable were:
Advisor HD Grid X Mapping Catheter, Sensor Enabled, to
further support mapping of both pulsed field ablation and
radiofrequency ablation cases
Assert IQ, our Bluetooth -enabled insertable cardiac
monitor that provides physicians a new option for
diagnostic evaluation and long-term monitoring of people
experiencing abnormal heartbeats
AVEIR DR, the world s first dual-chamber leadless
pacemaker system, received CE Mark in Europe
Esprit BTK, our first-of-its-kind resorbable scaffold for
people with chronic limb-threatening ischemia below
the knee
Femoston Mini, a hormonal replacement therapy to treat
postmenopausal symptoms and help prevent osteoporosis,
launched in China
Liberta RC, the world s smallest rechargeable deep brain
stimulation system with remote programming to treat
movement disorders
Lingo, our biowearable device for consumers who are
looking to improve their overall health and wellness
PROTALITY, our new nutrition shake to support the
growing number of adults interested in pursuing weight
loss while maintaining muscle mass and good nutrition
TriClip, our first-of-its kind device to repair leaky
tricuspid heart valves
Last year, newly launched products contributed more than
$1 billion to our sales; we expect to double that performance
in 2025 and to maintain this level of pipeline productivity
over the next five years.
BROADER BUSINESS , BRIG HTER FUTURE
DIVERSITY
DIVERSITY
DIVERSITY
by technology
by regions
by payer
Cardiovascular
Diabetes Care
Diagnostics
Medicines
Neuromodulation
Nutrition
Africa
Asia-Pacific
Europe
North America
South America
Consumers
Insurers
Governments
Full-year gross margin as a percent of sales improved 60 basis points on a GAAP basis # Full-year R&D Expense on a GAAP basis for 2024 was $2.8 billion
3
3/14/2025 Letter Continued (Full PDF)