On Wednesday Abbott Laboratories (ABT, Financial) informed the market that its High Sensitive Troponin-I blood test is now certified with a CE marking.
This means that the product of Abbott Labs is in compliance with health, safety and environmental protection standards, and therefore it is freely marketable in the European Economic Area.
The test is a direct biomarker of heart injury. It can now be used to assess the risk of a heart attack months or years beforehand in people who have not reported heart disease symptoms. This is because the test is now capable of detecting extremely low levels of troponin I. Troponin is a cardiac protein. The level of the protein normally increases in people who have a heart attack.Â
Blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes and smoking will still be used as standard care to determine the risk of developing a heart disease. But the adding of Abbott's High Sensitive Troponin-I test to the standard care significantly increases the reliability of the prediction. Many researches have demonstrated that.
For example, the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study shows that the levels of troponin-I could indicate an increased risk of coronary heart disease regardless of the lowering of cholesterol levels.
The test of Abbott Labs is a crucial step forward in the fight against cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading cause of death worldwide. People at high risk of developing a coronary disease can receive the correct treatment. Those at a low risk will not undergo unnecessary expensive medical check ups.
Abbott Labs has made the test available on the company's Architect system for the assessment of the cardiac risk in people living in the European Economic Area.
Abbott Labs is expected to rise on the heels of the news.
Abbott Labs climbed 24% so far this year. The market capitalization was $127.78 billion at close Wednesday.
The 52-week range is $53.2 to $73.29 per share.
The stock has a price-book ratio of 4.18 versus an industry median of 3.06, a price-sales ratio of 4.34 versus an industry median of 3.15 and a price-earnings ratio of 145.68 versus an industry median of 30.17.
Abbott Labs is reporting 1,754.32 million shares outstanding, of which 71.61% is held by institutions and 0.81% is held by insiders.
Abbott Labs is paying dividends to its shareholders. The forward dividend is $1.12 per ordinary share, yielding 1.55%.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any securities mentioned in this article.
