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Heart failure devices pump up St. Jude's profit, revenue

(Corrects to remove duplicate word 'profit' from headline)

* Shares jump as much as 5.1 pct

* Q1 sales in heart failure unit rise 49 pct to $374 mln

* Cardiac rhythm management unit qtrly revenue falls 10 pct

By Amrutha Penumudi

April 20 (Reuters) - St. Jude Medical Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly results helped by strong heart failure device sales and said it was making progress in getting its pacemaker and defibrillator business back on track.

The company's shares jumped as much as 5.1 pct on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, putting them on track for their best day in nearly eight months.

Sales in the heart failure unit rose 49 percent to $374 million on better adoption of its heart pump, HeartMate II in the United States.

However, the company's traditional cardiac rhythm management (CRM) unit which sells pacemakers and defibrillators reported a 10 percent fall in revenue as it continues to lose U.S. market share to rivals.

CRM revenues have been falling as St. Jude does not yet have MRI-compatible devices in the United States, making patients choose rival products.

In the first quarter of this year, CRM sales contributed 25 percent to the total revenue of the company. Only three years ago, the unit contributed about half of it.

The company said it has been working with the United States Food and Drug Administration to secure approval for a range of MRI-compatible products.

The launch of its MRI-compatible pacemaker has now been shifted to the second half of 2016 from the first half. Chief Financial Officer Donald Zurbay said he expected the delay to cost St. Jude about $5 million a quarter.

With new product launches likely to boost performance in the second half of the year and 2017, Leerink Partners analysts said the first quarter was a positive step for St. Jude in stablilizing growth going forward.

For the first quarter ended April 2, earnings attributable to the company fell to $95 million, or 33 cents per share, from $262 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding after-tax charges of 57 cents per share, the company earned 90 cents per share during the quarter, beating average analysts' estimate of 88 cents per share according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

St. Jude's total sales rose to $1.45 billion from $1.35 billion. Analysts were expecting sales of $1.43 billion.

The company also raised its 2016 adjusted profit forecast to $4.01 to $4.11 per share from its previous estimate of $3.95 to $4.05 per share.

(Reporting by Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shounak Dasgupta)

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