Shares of Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) are up 0.5% in today’s trading session after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.50 per share on $8.19 billion in sales, which compares to EPS of $1.42 a share on $7.86 billion in sales expected from the surveyed market analysts.

"We reported a strong end to our fiscal year, with our fourth quarter results demonstrating continued momentum. Our recovery improved throughout the quarter, with most of our markets returning to near normal, pre-COVID growth rates," said Geoff Martha, Medtronic chairman and chief executive officer.

“As we look ahead, these actions set us up to drive accelerated revenue growth in the year ahead and over the long term."

For the current year, the company is looking to earn between EPS of between $5.60 and $5.75 per share while the analysts were calling for $5.75 per share.

"Our fiscal 2022 revenue guidance that we are issuing for the first time today is about a point higher than Street estimates, as we anticipate strong organic revenue growth driven by new product launches and end market recovery from the impact of the pandemic," said Karen Parkhill, Medtronic chief financial officer.

Moreover, Parkhill announced the company is “investing at the front end of major product launches,” as it plans for the “largest increase in R&D spend” in the history of the company. The goal is to accelerate long-term growth and capitalize on a long list of opportunities.

Stifel analyst Rick Wise said that both the quarterly performance and outlook “seem largely-encouraging.”

“Relative to our projections outperformance was largely led by the Cardiovascular and Medical Surgical divisions. Diabetes underperformed slightly though encouragingly returned to positive y/y growth (+9.1% ex-fx). As well, we view yesterday's announcement of a Guardian 4 sensor CE mark as an important step in improving the MDT diabetes offering. With F4Q21 margin/OpEX largely as expected, top-line outperformance and lower-tax drove a solid EPS beat ($1.50 vs $1.43/$1.42 Stifel/Consensus). Turning to F2022, Medtronic's first-time sales guidance at $33.2B-$33.3B (+9% organic) is nicely above prior Stifel/ Consensus (~$32.7B). Still, Medtronic's F2022 EPS outlook at $5.60-$5.75 is below Street estimates ($5.75) at the mid-point as the company plans their "largest ever" y/y R&D spend,” the analyst says in a memo.