– One Abbott Park Road, Abbott Park 60064, 708-937-6100
– Founded: 1900
– Fiscal year-end: Dec. 31
– Chief executive
Duane L. Burnham, 51, since 1989.
1992 cash compensation: $1,444,035, up 7.7 percent from 1991.
Shares owned: 429,884 shares of 835.3 million common shares.
– Employees: 48,118; 13,600 in Illinois
– Foreign sales: 38 percent of $7.9 billion total in 1992
– May 1, 1993, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased May 1, 1992: $863
Purchased May 1, 1988: $2,666
– As talk swirls of cuts and controls on health-care spending, this diversified health-care products company keeps filling growing demand for what it sells. 1992 was its 21st consecutive year of record sales and profits. Earnings per share grew 15.7 percent from 1991.
– The company’s push for increased strength as a manufacturer of high-margin medicines hit a snag when it voluntarily recalled its new antibiotic temafloxacin from the world market after some patients who used it had died. But another new drug, clarithromycin, had worldwide sales of more than $250 million.
– Abbott remains the market leader in infant formula, supplying about half the product consumed in the U.S. While that market grew only modestly worldwide, the company experienced 20 percent growth in sales of medical nutritionals for general health maintenance and for patients suffering from specific diseases such as diabetes and kidney ailments.
