Following the announcement that Abbott Laboratories’ Q1 Diagnostics business revenues slightly declined year-over-year;

Dara Lo, Medical Device Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“Within Abbott’s Diagnostics business segment, core laboratory revenues were down 7%. GlobalData expects this hit in revenue to be caused by the general decrease in elective and routine procedures such as oncology testing that have been negatively impacted due social isolation, and a general reluctance for patients with diseases other than COVID-19 from going to physician offices and hospitals during this time.

“Although core laboratory revenues were down, Abbott’s molecular diagnostics revenues grew 29%, while its point-of-care revenues were up almost 2% and its rapid diagnostic revenues increased by 4%. Furthermore, Abbott reported one million COVID-19 PCR tests shipped in March, and is on target to manufacture a further four million in April.

“Companies such as Abbott, Thermo Fisher and Roche were agile in their response to COVID-19. Historically dominating the lab testing space, these companies had thousands of machines in place that could then be used once a COVID-19 test was developed. For example, Abbott has approximately 2,000 immunoassay analysers in place, which has the capacity to run 100-800 tests per hour. Furthermore, because Abbott already makes testing kits for other infectious diseases such as HIV and the flu the company has the necessary research and development (R&D) and manufacturing in place to make a COVID-19 test much quicker than other companies. GlobalData expects Abbott’s multiple COVID-19 products will continue to bolster the company from any further decreases in revenue.”