Danaher (NYSE:DHR) shares ticked up this morning on fourth-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
The Washington, D.C.-based company posted profits of $1.2 billion, or $1.66 per share, on sales of $6.8 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2020, for a -4.8% bottom-line slide on sales growth of 38.9%.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $2.08, 21¢ ahead of Wall Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $6.5 billion.
Danaher’s life sciences segment posted revenue totaling $3.4 billion (75.4% growth from Q4 2019), while its diagnostics arm registered sales of $2.2 billion (23.4% growth year-over-year).
The company’s growth also included contributions from Cytiva, which is the biopharma business (formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences) acquired by Danaher in April.
Danaher is projecting revenue growth for the first quarter of 2021 to be in the mid-to-high-teens range, while full-year growth is expected to register in the low-double-digit range.
DHR shares were up 2.6% at $227.89 per share in mid-morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up 1.7%.