Abbott Goes Global

2007 was a pretty good year for American drug companies selling drugs overseas. The dropping dollar helped a lot, but for Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT  ) , that was just a bonus on top of stellar sales growth -- 15% with the currency help, 12% without it.

Abbott did so well, in fact, that non-U.S. sales for 2007 were slightly larger than U.S. sales for the first time in the company's history. It's not like sales at home were slumping either; for the year, U.S. sales were up 12%.

Revenues were mostly bolstered by the company's top seller, anti-inflammatory drug Humira, which increased sales 50% year over year. Meanwhile, bipolar treatment Depokate, HIV treatment Kaletra, and Abbott's TriCor medicine -- to lower blood fats called triglycerides -- also contributed double-digit growth.

The drugmaker even ensured a little diversity in its sales growth leading into 2008; nutritional product sales, which include the meal replacement shake Ensure, grew 11% year over year in the fourth quarter.

Abbott will continue to rely on Humira for top-line growth in 2008. Sales growth will slow a little, but the drugmaker still expects Humira sales to be around $4 billion this year. A lot of that growth will come from its label expansion into plaque psoriasis, where it will compete against Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN  ) and Wyeth's (NYSE: WYE  ) Enbrel, among many others. Humira will also have added competition from Elan (NYSE: ELN  ) and Biogen Idec's (Nasdaq: BIIB  ) Tysabri (for treating Crohn's disease) in the U.S., but it won't have to deal with added competition from Tysabri in Europe.

The other real growth story for Abbot this year, which should help it reach its goal of about 13%-14% EPS growth (excluding one-time items), will be in drug-eluting stents. Assuming the FDA approves the Xience V drug-eluting stent this year -- and I don't see why it wouldn't -- it's going to be an interesting battle. The newcomer will be looking to steal market share from entrenched leaders like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ  ) and Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX  ) , while at the same time trying to convince doctors to start using drug-eluting stents again (after safety reports initially convinced some doctors to stop using them).

If Abbott can keep up its double-digit growth on top of its more than 2% dividend yield, this four-star CAPS stock looks to be a good buy -- with or without a falling dollar.