Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to Alexion Pharmaceutical's second quarter 2020 results conference call. At this time, I'll put this in front and then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. If you require a good question, press star and then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star and then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Chris Devo, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning. Thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss Alexion's performance for the second quarter of 2020. Just as we did last quarter, we are practicing physical distancing and are each doing the call from home. Today's call will be led by Ludwig Hansen, our CEO. Ludwig will be joined by Aradna Sarin, our Chief Financial Officer, John Orloff, our global head of R&D, and Brian Goff, our chief commercial and global operations officer. We will begin the call with a brief presentation and will reserve the rest of the time for your questions. You can access the webcast slides that will be presented on this call and other earnings materials by going to the events section of our investor relations page on our website. Before we begin, I would like to point out that we will be making forward-looking statements and these statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. Please take a look at the risk factors discussed in our SEC filings for additional detail. These forward-looking statements apply only as of today, and we undertake no duty to update any of the statements after the call, except as required by law. I'd also like to remind you that we will be using non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information with the understanding of our ongoing business performance. Reconciliations of our financial results and financial guidance are included in our press release. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as an addition to, but not a substitute for, our GAAP results. Thank you. With that, I'm happy to give you our CEO, Ludwig.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to share our second quarter performance. The last several months have tested the global community, healthcare systems worldwide, and individuals and families around the world. We know the rare disease community has been greatly impacted and remain committed to supporting them. Our ability to successfully navigate through this challenging time is a result of strong execution against the contingency plan we developed at the beginning of the pandemic. This will guide us as we move forward. Our continued performance demonstrates the overall strength of the business and the resilience of the organization. I would like to thank our employees worldwide for their hard work and relentless commitment to our mission of transforming the lives of people with rare diseases and devastating conditions. Turning to the progress we have made in the second quarter, we have delivered another very strong financial performance. with 20% revenue growth and 18% non-GAAP EPS growth year over year. As a result, we have increased our full-year financial guidance to reflect the momentum of the business. Driven by continuous execution, demonstrated commercial excellence, and a growing pipeline, we've entered a new stage for the company, one of diversified growth and financial flexibility. As part of this evolution, We actively review our long-term corporate plan to assess the most compelling capital allocation strategies, industry landscape, and business development opportunities to ensure we support the areas of high score potential for value creation. As a result of the company's continued progress over the last three years, we now have the ability to be more flexible in how we deploy capital with confidence in our pipeline and our future. we are able to make a multi-year commitment to return more value to shareholders. We have significantly increased our free cash flow over the last few years and are committing to a minimum share repurchase of $500 to $550 million in 2020 and at least an average of one-third of free cash flow annually from 2021 to 2023. We will also continue to be opportunistic about this commitment. As you may recall, last year we laid out a multi-year strategy for value creation with three primary areas of focus. The first revolves around the leadership in complement. We have achieved our initial ambition in this area by establishing Ultramir as the market leader in P&H with more than 70% conversion in the U.S. We launched Ultramaris for HUS in the U.S. last October and are on track to achieve our goal of 70% conversion for Solaris within two years. The German launch in HUS is just getting started following last month's European Commission decision, and our Japanese team is preparing for approval later this year. In addition, we continue to advance efforts to improve patients' treatment experience. We received positive Phase III non-inferiority data for our ultramarine once-weekly sub-Q formulation, which will provide an additional treatment choice for our patients. Next, we are broadening our C5 franchise into new and expanded therapeutic areas. We began this expansion with neurology, which has already grown into our largest franchise in the U.S. We continue to build on this momentum. and arm track to quadruple the number of U.S. neurology patients treated by 2025. In addition, phase III ultramarine studies in MG and MOSD and ALS are all underway, and we plan to begin additional late-stage trials in several new indications later this year. Third, we have significantly diversified our development and commercial stage portfolios to discipline business development. Earlier this month, we completed the acquisition of Fotola, and we're very excited to welcome our new colleagues into the organization. We look forward to advancing our shared mission of developing transformative therapies together. Collectively, we have made great strides advancing and transforming Alexion and have built a strong foundation for the future. Our pipeline now includes 20 development programs, up from four at the end of 2017, with the potential for 10 launches by 2023. As a result of the strong foundation we have established, we're also well-positioned to continue delivering on our ambition of double-digit revenue growth. We believe significant value lies ahead as we continue to execute on our strategy to create shareholder value. We have made substantial progress thus far and have created a strong foundation upon which we can continue to deliver. Importantly, our journey continues as we remain focused on driving long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to Arana. Arana?