AstraZeneca PLC

Good morning to those joining from the US. Good afternoon to those in the UK and Central Europe. And good evening to those listening in Asia. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to AstraZeneca's nine months and Q3 results 2023 conference call and webinar for investors and analysts. Before I hand over to AstraZeneca, I'd like to read the safe harbor statement. The company intends to utilize the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Participants on this call may make forward-looking statements with respect to the operations and financial performance of AstraZeneca. Although we believe our expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, by their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and may be influenced by factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements made on this call reflect the knowledge and information available at the time of this call. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Please also carefully review the forward-looking statements disclaimer in the slide deck that accompanies this presentation and webinar. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after today's presentations. please use the raise a hand feature to indicate you wish to ask a question, and remember to unmute your line when invited to speak. And with that, I will now hand you over to the company.

Thank you, operator. I'm Andy Barnett, Head of Investor Relations at AstraZeneca, and I'm very pleased to welcome you to AstraZeneca's nine-month and third quarter of 2023 conference call. As usual, all materials presented are available on our website. This slide contains our usual safe harbor statement. We will be making comments on our performance using constant exchange rates, or CER, core financial numbers, and other non-GAAP measures. A non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliation is contained within the results announcement. Numbers used today are in millions of US dollars and less otherwise stated. This slide shows our agenda for today's call. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. As usual, we will try and address as many questions as we can during the allotted time, although I'd ask participants to limit the number of questions you ask to allow others a fair chance to participate in the Q&A. As a reminder, to ask a question, raise the hand function in Zoom. Alternatively, you can use the Q&A button and write your answers. And with that, Pascal, I will hand it over to you.

Thank you, Andy. Hello, everyone. Please advance to the next slide. Total revenue in the first nine months of the year increased 5% to $33.8 billion, with 15% growth from our non-COVID-19 medicines offsetting a $2.9 billion decline in revenue from our COVID-19 medicines. Core earnings per share increased 17% to $5.80. This increase is reflective of our robust company performance, our financial discipline, as well as, again, in other operating income that we announced with our half-year results. We continue to benefit from our diverse commercial portfolio and our broad global footprint. Given our confidence in the remainder of the year, we have upgraded our 2023 guidance. We now anticipate total revenue ex-COVID to increase by low teens percentage and co-APS to increase by low double digit to low teens percentage. Aradna will provide more details on our financials shortly. Next slide, please. Taking a closer look at the performance of our non-COVID revenue across our regions and disease areas, we saw double digit growth in the US and Europe in the period, reflecting strong demand for medicines and continued commercial execution. Our growth in the emerging markets continues to impress, particularly outside of China, which was up 37% in the year to date. This sustained growth underscores our confidence that this market will become increasingly important for our company. On the right-hand side of this slide, you will see that we delivered robust double-digit growth across oncology, CVRM, and rare disease. And as expected, we saw declines in VNI. RNA medicines growth more than compensated for the impact of generic competition to Simbico launched in the U.S. during the third quarter. We saw a reduction in promotional activities in China in Q3, which created some dim and softness for southern medicines in the quarter. But I have already seen recovery beginning in October. We remain confident in delivering our total revenue guidance for China for the full year, which we upgraded with our half-year results. Please move to the next slide. And like many of our peers, we have relatively low exposure to patent expiries. We have a broad, diverse portfolio of commercialized medicines, and we have an industry-leading late-stage pipeline, which includes several high-potential assets. However, our vision is not short-term. We are also striving to deliver sustainable, industry-leading growth for many years to come. And while we are maintaining a focus on discovering new small and large molecules, We have taken the strategic decision to increase investment behind new modalities that we believe have the potential to revolutionize outcomes for patients. With our ADC portfolio, we are aiming to replace the use of traditional chemotherapy across the board. Combinations of our ADCs with our next generation IO by specific portfolio offers the promise of more durable benefits for patients with improved tolerability. We are pioneering new modalities such as epigenetic, oligonucleotides, and RNA therapies to unlock entirely new treatment approaches, and we're excited by the curative potential of cell engine therapies. I'm pleased with the progress we're making in each of these areas, and I look forward to sharing updates with you over the coming years. With that, please advance to the next slide, and I will hand over to Aradna, who will take you through our final shows and also provide a closer look at how we are leveraging AI in the commercial parts of our company.