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In the year-ago quarter, results were also boosted by an after-tax gain of $368 million from the breakup fee J&J received after medical device maker Guidant Corp.

backed out of an acquisition agreement and instead was purchased by Boston Scientific Corp.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected earnings per share of $1.05 and sales of $14.44 billion.

Sales totaled $15.04 billion, up nearly 16 percent from $12.99 billion a year earlier.

Operational sales growth, which Advertisementexcludes the impact of new products and currency exchange rates, was 6.3 percent.

Revenues from the medical devices and diagnostics division edged up 6.2 percent to $5.32 billion, hurt by a 14 percent slide at Cordis, J&J's cardiovascular device business.

Sales of Cordis' drug-coated stents, tiny metal scaffolds that prop open arteries and slowly release medicine, were problematic, Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso told analysts during a conference call.

He was referring to new concerns about the safety and effectiveness of J&J's Cypher and other drug-coated stents.

Sales of prescription drugs, J&J's biggest business segment, rose 10.6 percent to $6.22 billion, led by strong sa...

Cypher Stent Revenue from the Cypher stent fell 26 percent to $530 million after studies linked the device to elevated risk of fatal blood clots.

J&J is still the leading worldwide seller of stents, with a 48 percent market share, the company said.

Sales of drug-coated heart stents made by J&J and Boston Scientific Corp.

fell in March, declining for the sixth time in seven months as doctors use older, bare-metal models to prop open arteries, according to a report released last week by Goodroe Healthcare Solutions, a Norcross, Georgia, company that surveys U.S.

hospitals.

Pharmaceutical revenue rose 11 percent to $6.2 billion.

Sales of antipsychotics, including the schizophrenia drug Risperdal, rose 3 percent to $1.2 billion.

Sales of Procrit, an anemia drug re-labeled in March to warn of risks of heart attacks and strokes, rose less than one percent, to $530 million.

``It was a positive surprise that Procrit issues haven't shown up in the numbers,'' Cranna said.

Procrit Sales Procrit sales were bolstered by strong revenue from retailers and hospitals during the quarter, J&J said.

Consumer-product revenue rose 49 percent to $3.5 billion, helped by sales from products acquired from Pfizer as well as from J&J's line of baby-care items.

In the first quarter of 2006, earnings excluding a breakup fee from J&J'...