Dive Brief:

• Boston Scientific released preliminary unaudited sales results for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year 2018 Tuesday morning ahead of its presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Fourth quarter sales are reported up 6.3% at $2.56 billion.
• The company presented data showing yearly sales of $9.82 billion, representing 8.6% reported growth and exceeding the company's initial 2018 prediction of $9.65 to $9.80 billion in sales. The yearly total hit the top end of the most recent guidance put out at the end of the third quarter, which estimated between $9.787 billion and $9.827 billion in yearly sales.
• Leading businesses included interventional cardiology, cardiac rhythm management and endoscopy. The MedSurg unit showed 7.5% growth during the fourth quarter and 9.7% growth across the year as a whole.

Dive Insight:

Last year was a head-turning year for Boston Scientific, which led the industry with tuck-in acquisitions, including a $4.2 billion pick-up of BTG in November to expand its presence in the interventional oncology and pulmonary embolism markets. Boston Scientific is also set to begin a $200 million restructuring plan in 2019.

Analysts at Leerink were encouraged by the growth across all divisions during the fourth quarter and sees a positive outlook going forward.

"BSX enters 2019 with a much cleaner balance sheet, with no major calls to cash and the ability to continue being nimble from an M&A perspective and perhaps get even more aggressive in cash deployment," Leerink analysts wrote in an investors note. "To us, BSX remains one of the strongest and safest "growth" stories in large-cap MedTech, with top-tier and above-market sales and EPS growth that is likely sustainable for the foreseeable future."

The company did not include guidance for fiscal year 2019 as part of its pre-announcement. Boston Scientific will host its full fourth quarter earnings call Feb. 6.