Medpace Holdings, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MedPace First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in 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's assistance, please press star, then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Lauren Morris, MediPace Director and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining MedPace's first quarter 2022 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 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 measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in the 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 morning. I'm going to provide a quick update on the business environment. The softening of RFP flow observed in the first few quarters stabilized, and I'm happy to say that overall Q1 2022 RFPs were of total volume came in roughly flat with Q1 of 2021. On the other hand, at the time of our last call, we had seen little to no evidence of funding challenges by our clients. This has evolved, and more recently, we have seen a number of delayed or canceled programs due to funding. Looking at programs either put on hold or terminated early for lack of funds, the dollar value in the first four and a half months of 2022 has already exceeded the total for calendar year 2021. If the funding environment for our clients does not improve in the next few months, this could pose a challenge to our 2022 and 2023 growth plans. However, at this point, we continue to anticipate 2022 revenue and profit to fall within our prior guidance ranges. Earnings per share will exceed prior guidance due to share repurchases in Q1. Jesse will now provide some commentary on our results. Jesse?