STJ ST. Jude Medical, Inc.

St. Jude Medical Inc. on Wednesday offered weak profit forecasts for 2016 as the company continues to face pressure in its cardiac rhythm segment.

St. Jude said it expects to post adjusted earnings of $3.95 to $4.05 for the full year, while analysts had expected $4.14 a share in earnings, according to Thomson Reuters. For the current quarter, St. Jude said it expects earnings of 87 cents to 89 cents, below the 94 cents analysts are forecasting.

Sales are expected to be flat to slightly up in the first quarter and up 2% to 4% for the full year when excluding currency impact. St. Jude expects currency to cut $120 million to $140 million from its sales for the full year.

The medical device maker had said earlier this month that earnings for its fourth quarter would match analysts' expectations, though revenue would fall slightly short amid weakness in its cardiac rhythm segment.

In all for the period ended Jan. 2, St. Jude reported a profit of $113 million, or 39 cents a share, compared with $245 million, or 84 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items like acquisition and restructuring charges, per-share earnings were $1.02. The St. Paul, Minn., company had forecast adjusted earnings of $1.01 to $1.02 a share.

Revenue ticked up to $1.45 billion from $1.44 billion, matching the company's forecast from this month.

Earlier this month, St. Jude reported that sales in the cardiac rhythm segment—its biggest business and maker of pacemakers, among other products—fell 10% during the quarter when adjusted for currency impact.

St. Jude faces rising pressure in its magnetic resonance imaging-conditional category of products. That decline was countered by increases elsewhere: Atrial fibrillation sales rose 4%, cardiovascular revenue inched up 2% and sales of neuromodulation products grew 9%.

Thoratec product sales were $136 million during the period, above the $125 million to $130 million St. Jude had anticipated. The company in October bought heart-device maker Thoratec Corp. for about $3.4 billion, a move to beef up its presence in the market for heart failure therapies.

Write to Chelsey Dulaney at Chelsey.Dulaney@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 27, 2016 09:05 ET (14:05 GMT)

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