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St. Jude shares rise on positive earnings outlook

...After years of double-digit growth in annual sales for these cardiac rhythm management devices, defibrillator and pacemaker sales slowed significantly during 2006 following a series of high-profile device recalls, primarily from one of St.

Jude's competitors.

But Daniel Starks, the chief executive officer at St.

Jude, said during a conference call with investors this morning: "We see some encouraging signs of returns to normalcy." The company's overall sales for ICDs came in at $302 million during the quarter, up 15 percent from $263 million in defibrillator sales during the same quarter last year.

The U.S.

market has been most damaged by the recall controversy, but St.

Jude's ICD domestic sales of St.

Jude competes in the market for ICDs and Advertisementpacemakers with Fridley-based Medtronic Inc.

and Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific, which makes its cardiac rhythm devices in Arden Hills.

All three companies have pointed to hopeful signs of recovery in the market for heart-rhythm devices during the past six months, but some of those hopes were dashed in February when Medtronic reported a slight decline in ICD sales for its quarter ending in late January.

For St.

Jude, signs of recovery that the company saw in results from the fourth quarter of 2006 just got stronger during the first quarter of 2007, Starks said.

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