Abbott Laboratories

Abbott Laboratories is an American diversified healthcare company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells medical devices, diagnostic products, nutritional products, and branded generic pharmaceuticals, generating $44.3 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. The company operates in more than 160 countries, employs approximately 115,000 people, and has paid a dividend every year since 1924.

This is a story about a 125-year-old healthcare conglomerate that has transformed itself twice in a decade — first through the 2017 acquisition of St. Jude Medical, which made it a force in cardiovascular devices and diabetes care, and now through the March 2026 acquisition of Exact Sciences, which adds a new high-growth cancer diagnostics vertical. The file turns on a central question: whether Abbott's collection of businesses, each with different growth profiles and competitive dynamics, compounds at the high-single-digit rate that justifies its premium valuation, or whether the inevitable soft spots in a portfolio this large prevent the whole from exceeding the sum of its parts.

The growth story is concentrated in Medical Devices, where continuous glucose monitors, electrophysiology catheters, structural heart devices, and leadless pacemakers deliver low-double-digit growth that few diversified healthcare peers can match. The counterweights are real: Nutrition is navigating a deliberate price-to-volume transition that suppressed near-term growth, Diagnostics is lapping the dual headwinds of declining COVID testing revenue and China's volume-based procurement program, and the Exact Sciences integration will consume management attention and carry integration risk. The balance sheet post-Exact carries roughly $34 billion in total debt, but Abbott's free cash flow generation — $7.4 billion in FY2025 — provides ample capacity to service it while continuing to grow the dividend.