Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Agilent Technologies first quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. And now I'd like to introduce you to the host for today's conference, Ankur Dhingra, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jason, and welcome everyone to Agilent's first quarter conference call for fiscal year 2021. With me are Mike McMullen, Agilent's President and CEO, and Bob McMahon, Agilent's Senior Vice President and CFO. Joining in the Q&A after Bob's comments will be Jacob Tyson, President of Agilent's Life Science and Applied Markets Group, Sam Raha, President of Agilent's Diagnostics and Genomics Group, and Poreg McDonald, President of Agilent CrossLab Group. This presentation is being webcast live. The news release, investor presentation, and information to supplement today's discussion, along with the recording of this webcast, are made available on our website at investors.agilent.com. Today's comments by Mike and Bob will refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You will find the most directly comparable GAAP financial metrics and reconciliations on our website. Unless otherwise noted, All references to increases or decreases in financial metrics are year over year and references to revenue growth are on a core basis. Core revenue growth excludes the impact of currency and the acquisitions and divestitures completed within the past 12 months. Guidance is based on exchange rates as of January 31st. We will also make forward-looking statements about the financial performance of the company. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are valid as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update them. Please look at the company's recent SEC filings for a more complete picture of our risks and other factors. And now, I would like to turn the call over to Mike.

Thanks, Ankur, and thank you to everyone for joining us today on our call. I'm very pleased to be on the call with you today. We are off to an excellent start to our fiscal year. The Agilent team delivered outstanding results in the first quarter. The momentum in our business continues. Revenues for the quarter are $1.55 billion. This is up 14% on a reported basis and 11% core, exceeding our mid-January revised expectations. Also, as expected, COVID-19 tailwinds added roughly 2.5 points to our overall growth. Operating margins are healthy, 25.5%. EPS of $0.06 is up 31% year over year. Overall, a very impressive start to 2021. Our growth is broad-based. All three of our business groups delivered double-digit growth. All regions grew, with the two largest leading the way. China grew 25%, and the Americas posted 13% growth. We continue to see strength in most of our end markets, led by pharma growing 20%. These results are a testament to our build-and-buy growth strategy and the Agilent team's relentless customer focus. Demand remains strong for the full breadth of our offerings. We have been gaining market share in key areas. We are clearly keeping our foot on the gas. Now, let's take a look at our performance by business group. The Life Sciences Applied Markets Group generated $722 million in revenue, up 13% on a reported basis, and up 11% core. LSAG's growth is broad-based across end markets and geographies. We are particularly pleased with our cell analysis business. Cell analysis grew in the high teens, led by biotech, which grew 26%. Growth is also strong at liquid chromatography and mass spec product lines, with both growing in the teens. Overall, our LSAG business saw very strong demand, as many customers utilized their end-of-year CapEx budgets, and our market share gains continued. From an end-market perspective, food and pharma led the way for LSAG. Continued by our pharma investment focus, we introduced new updates to our mass-funded LCMS software. This new software enables data integrity, consists with important regulatory requirements for our biopharma customers. As we continue to build our digital lab, we introduced the Agilent 7850 ICP-MS system, which provides new smart digital tools to improve workflows. LSAG's broad and continually strengthening portfolio is well positioned and continues to outperform the industry. The Agilent cross-type group posted revenues of $532 million This is up a report of 13% and up 10% core. ACG's growth is also broad-based across end markets and geographies. Growth is strong in both services and consumables. Our digital investments in scale are adding significant value. We continue to drive improved attach rates to Agilent's large installed base of instruments. Annual service contract renewal rates and growth were strong in the quarter, as we continue to build a more resilient and higher-growth business. The Diagnostic Genomics Group revenues are $294 million, up 18% reported, and up 15% core. Growth is broad-based, led by our NASD Oligo business. Our genomics product portfolio grew double-digit, aided by COVID-19-related QPCR demand. We also achieved strong growth in our core NGS sample prep business, As mentioned earlier, overall company growth is broad-based across most of our end markets. The pharmaceutical and food businesses led the way, both growing strong double digits. We also posed a 10% growth in the environmental and forensics market. Chemical energy grew 2%, and we've seen increased business activity in the C&E space. The academic end market is down 1%, with many university labs still operating in a constrained environment. We are also continuing our efforts in the battle against COVID-19. We have completed our development and clinical validation for a serology assay to detect COVID-19 antibodies. We plan to submit to the U.S. FDA for emergency use authorization within the next month. In addition, we're making progress on our acute PCR-based test for COVID-19 detection and plan to launch in Europe in the next couple of months and submit for emergency use authorization in the U.S. within the same timeframe. I'm also pleased to share that Barron is again recently named Agilent, one of America's most sustainable companies. This marks the third year in a row we've been included among the top three companies in this ranking. We've also been the leader in our industry all four years that Barron's List has been published. We're very proud of this honor. Sustainability is a key priority for our company. You know, when I look back on the uncertainty we faced at this time last year, I'm so proud of what the Agile team accomplished. All-time high customer satisfaction ratings, building momentum in all our businesses, and delivering excellent results. Our first quarter results are another compelling proof point that we are building an even stronger company and market position during the pandemic. As we discussed at our December investor event, our diverse, industry-leading product portfolio has never been stronger. Our building and buying growth strategy, with a focus on high-growth markets, continues to deliver. Our M&A funnel is robust and remains focused on growth that created M&A opportunities. We are targeting companies and markets where we see potential for significant long-term growth and Aslin is a strong position to win. As we look ahead, we have a sense of realistic optimism. We have solid momentum. We're winning in the market, and we have the right team to continue to succeed. As a result, we are raising our core growth guidance range to 6.5% to 8% for the year. As you may recall, we recently got it to a long-term core growth rate of between 5% and 7%. So we are certainly off to a good start in 2021, and we have no intention of slowing down. We are also raising our earnings guidance for the year. In December, I shared ATSA's long-range plan of margin expansion at 50 to 100 basis points a year. We are now guiding towards the top end of that range for 2021. Bob will share more details on this in his remarks. I couldn't be more pleased with how we have started the year. We have momentum. Our team is strong and energized. We are gaining market share in key areas, and we have an even more promising outlook for the full year. Thanks for being on the call today. I look forward to your questions. I will now hand the call off to Bob. Bob?