Medpace Holdings, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Mad Pace fourth quarter and four-year 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star then zero on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Lauren Mords, MedPace Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining MedPace's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. Also on the call today is our CEO, August Trundle, our President, Jesse Geiger, and our CFO, Kevin Brady. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our remarks and responses to your questions during this teleconference may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve inherent assumptions with known and unknown risks and uncertainties, as well as other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. These factors, including the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on our business, are discussed in our Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC. Please note that we assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements, even if estimates change. Accordingly, you should not rely on any of today's forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date after today. During this call, we will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not superior to or a replacement for the comparable GAAP measures, but we believe these measures help investors gain a more complete understanding of results. A reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our earnings press release and earnings call presentation slides provided in connection with today's call. The slides are available in the investor relations section of our website at investor.medpace.com. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to August Trundle.

Good day. MedPace had a good year in 2021 and is anticipating another good year in 2022. Our current 2022 guidance is essentially unchanged from our early guidance provided last October. Two issues that we are monitoring closely in 2022 are biotech funding and wage inflation. Biotech funding is down over the past year. However, we have not experienced an increase in project delays or other concerning signs related to client financial strains. RFP dollar volume was down approximately 10% in the second half of 2021 compared to the first half and was down over 25% in January 2022 compared to January 2021. Despite this weakening in RFP flow, we believe the business environment is sufficient to maintain a strong growth trajectory. Note that backlog awards can lag RFPs by several quarters and that our current awards reflect a strong competitive win rate over the past few quarters. Wage inflation has accelerated in the past six to nine months and will be a headwind margin. As a reminder, our bill out rates are set at time of project bid Annual wage inflation assumptions are generally included in each project that is bid, but these assumptions are usually on the low side of actual wage inflation and will trail actual inflation by even more in the current environment. We believe that our guidance adequately addresses the anticipated margin headwind. Jesse will now make some remarks on our performance, and then Kevin will review the quarter and guidance in more detail.