Baxter raises lower end of full-year forecast for earnings

Baxter International Inc., the maker of blood products and intravenous drugs, raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast after third-quarter profit beat analyst estimates.

Full-year earnings excluding one-time items will be $4.29 to $4.32 a share, the Deerfield, -based company said in a statement today. Baxter previously forecast $4.27 to $4.32. Baxter's third-quarter earnings excluding one-time items beat by 1 cent the $1.08 average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Third-quarter revenue of $3.48 billion benefited from a 13 percent increase in sales in emerging markets, the company said. The demand overseas more than compensated for U.S. sales growth of 1 percent.

“The evolving global macro-environment will exert ongoing pressures on our business,” said Robert L. Parkinson, Jr., Baxter's chief executive officer, in the statement. “We continue to benefit from the diversified and medically necessary nature of our portfolio.”

Third-quarter profit was $576 million, or $1.01 per share, a 10 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said.