Ongoing earnings per share were $1.40, reflecting nearly 45% growth compared to last year and sales increased more than 22% on an organic basis.
Excluding COVID testing-related sales, which totaled $1.9 billion in the quarter, organic sales increased 12% versus last year.
This has been a consistent theme throughout the pandemic, as evidenced by an increase in total company sales, excluding COVID tests, of 11% on an organic basis through the first nine months of this year compared to our 2019 pre-pandemic baseline, which highlights that our growth is real and not simply a function of easy comps versus last year.
As a result of our strong performance and outlook, today, we increased our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance range now at $5 to $5.10, which reflects nearly 40% growth compared to last year.
And I'll start with Nutrition, where sales increased 9% compared to last year.
In Pediatric Nutrition, sales grew over 8.5% in the quarter, led by strong growth in the US from continued share gains in our infant formula and toddler portfolio.
In Adult Nutrition, sales grew over 9% in the quarter, including mid-teens growth internationally, as we continue to see strong demand for our Ensure and Glucerna brands, including new users entering these categories and existing customers increasing their usage.
Sales increased more than 45% overall and 12.5%, excluding COVID testing-related sales.
In total, during the quarter, we sold more than 225 million COVID tests globally and have now shipped over 1 billion tests since the start of the pandemic.
Abbott has established a global leadership position in rapid testing, including a supply capacity of more than 100 million tests per month.
Moving to Established Pharmaceuticals, where sales grew more than 15%, driven by strong execution and a steady cadence of new product introductions.
Strong sales performance in the quarter was broad-based across several countries, including double-digit growth in China, Russia and India, which led to overall sales growth of 18% in our key emerging markets.
And lastly, I'll cover Medical Devices, where sales grew 13% in the quarter compared to last year and more than 16% compared to pre-pandemic sales in the third quarter of 2019.
After adjusting for this impact, CardioMEMS demonstrated a 28% reduction in heart failure hospitalizations.
And I'll wrap up with Diabetes Care, where strong growth was led by FreeStyle Libre sales of nearly $1 billion.
During the quarter, we added over 200,000 new users, bringing the total global user base for Libre to well over 3.5 million users.
And based on the strength of our performance and outlook, we're raising our earnings per share guidance for the year, which now reflects growth of nearly 40% compared to last year.
Sales for the third quarter increased 22.4% on an organic basis, which was led by strong performance across all of our businesses, you along with global COVID testing-related sales of $1.9 billion in the quarter.
Excluding COVID testing-related sales, organic sales growth was 12.1% versus last year and 11.7% compared to the third quarter of 2019.
Foreign exchange had a favorable year-over-year impact of 1% on third quarter sales, resulting in total reported sales growth of 23.4% in the quarter.
Regarding other aspects of the P&L for the quarter, the adjusted gross margin ratio was 58.8% of sales, adjusted R&D investment was 6% of sales and adjusted SG&A expense was 25% of sales.
Our third quarter adjusted tax rate was 15.5%, which reflects an adjustment to align our year-to-date tax rate with our revised full year effective tax rate forecast of 15%.
We forecast $1 billion to $1.4 billion of COVID testing-related sales and forecast organic sales growth, excluding COVID testing-related sales, in the low double-digits versus last year.
And based on current rates, we would expect exchange to have an unfavorable impact of around one-half of 1% on our fourth quarter reported sales.

Summary:
In total, during the quarter, we sold more than 225 million COVID tests globally and have now shipped over 1 billion tests since the start of the pandemic.
Abbott has established a global leadership position in rapid testing, including a supply capacity of more than 100 million tests per month.
We forecast $1 billion to $1.4 billion of COVID testing-related sales and forecast organic sales growth, excluding COVID testing-related sales, in the low double-digits versus last year.