Johnson & Johnson delivered quarterly earnings that topped analysts' expectations on Tuesday, but revenue was light as the impact of a strong dollar more than offset higher sales of its mainstay older drugs.
Shares of J&J edged lower in premarket trading following the announcement. (Get the latest quote here.)
The diversified health care giant posted third-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.49 per share, down from $1.50 a share in the year-earlier period.
Net profit fell to $3.36 billion, or $1.20 per share, from $4.75 billion, or $1.66 per share, a year earlier.
Revenue fell to $17.1 billion from $18.47 billion a year ago.
Analysts expected the company to post earnings per share of $1.45 on revenue of $17.45 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate.
J&J also forecast full-year adjusted earnings of $6.15 a share to $6.20 a share.
Earlier Tuesday, the drugmaker said it would buy back up to $10 billion of common stock.
The company said on Tuesday it had about 2.77 billion shares of common stock outstanding as of Sept. 27.
On Friday, J&J said it has begun clinical trials for an Ebola vaccine in Sierra Leone as part of a new study being conducted in the nation's Kambia district, the site of some of the most recent cases.
J&J's stock has lagged in the last year when compared to its rival Pfizer, having fallen more than 5 percent in that time, while Pfizer shares have risen more than 13 percent, according to FactSet data.
—Reuters contributed to this report.