AbbVie Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the AbbVie Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be able to listen only until the question and answer portion of this call. You may ask a question by pressing star 1 on your phone. I would now like to introduce Ms. Liz Shea, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may proceed.

Good morning and thanks for joining us. Also on the call with me today are Rick Gonzalez, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Michael Severino, Vice Chairman and President, Rob Michael, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Jeff Stewart, Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations. Joining us for the Q&A portion of the call is Laura Schumacher, Vice Chairman, External Affairs, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary. Before we get started, I remind you that some statements we make today may be considered forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. AbbVie cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Additional information about these risks and uncertainties is included in our SEC filings. AbbVie undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. On today's conference call, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand AbbVie's business performance These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled with comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release and regulatory filings from today, which can be found on our website. Unless otherwise noted, our commentary on sales growth is on a comparable basis, which includes full current year and historical results for Allergan. For this comparison of underlying performance, all historically reported Allergan revenues have been recast to conform to ABBYY's revenue recognition accounting policies and exclude the divestitures of ZENPAP and BioCase. References to operational growth further exclude the impact of exchange. Following our prepared remarks, we'll take your questions. So with that, I'll now turn the call over to Rick.

Thank you, Liz. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll discuss our second quarter performance and outlook, and then Jeff, Mike, and Rob will review our business highlights, pipeline progress, and financial results in more detail. AbbVie delivered another excellent quarter with adjusted earnings per share of $3.11, exceeding the midpoint of our guidance by 4 cents. Total adjusted net revenues of nearly $14 billion were up 19.3 percent on a comparable operational basis, approximately $375 million ahead of our expectations. These results demonstrate our strong and balanced performance across each of our major growth franchises, including double-digit comparable operational revenue growth from Immunology, Hemonc, Neuroscience, and Aesthetics. Looking at the most recent trends, the vast majority of our portfolio is well into the recovery phase from the pandemic. In Immunology, we continue to see strong recovery across the room, derm, and gastro segments, with positive trends across all key indicators, including new patient starts. Skyrizzy and Renvo continue to ramp nicely in their initial indications, with both products demonstrating robust double-digit sequential revenue growth. In neuroscience, Baylor is demonstrating strong new prescription volume in the atypical antipsychotic market And the launch of Ubrelvi, the leading oral CGRP for acute migraine, continues to exceed our expectations. Aesthetics continues to perform well above pre-COVID levels, exceeding our internal expectations. We're pleased with the rapid market growth in both toxins and fillers, driven by our increased promotional resources globally, brand strength, and COVID-related pent-up demand. Rapid global market demand is expected to remain well above historical levels in the near to medium term, and we are raising our full-year guidance once again for aesthetics. While the recovery across the AbbVie portfolio is going very well in aggregate, in certain disease areas like CLL and HCV, we continue to see a residual impact from the pandemic. We expect these specialty areas to further recover as the year progresses. One of AbbVie's greatest strengths is the dedication and engagement of our people. Across AbbVie, the majority of our employees have safely returned to the workplace, and our field teams are now predominantly conducting live engagements with physicians and customers where protocols and guidelines permit. I'm extremely proud of the teamwork and collaboration our people have demonstrated throughout this pandemic to bring our medicines to patients and keep our business performing at a strong level. As an organization, we have also made a tremendous amount of progress with the Allergan transaction and integration. We just recently completed our first full year as a combined company, which I'd say has gone exceptionally well. We're tracking well against the operational and financial commitments we outlined at the time of the transaction, with accretion performing above average. our original projections. But I'm particularly pleased with the robust revenue performance that we've been able to drive since acquiring Allergan, with 2021 sales tracking to grow significantly faster than legacy Allergan's historical performance. Our results continue to show that we have created a stronger and much more diverse company, with numerous products within our newly combined portfolio delivering robust growth. Based on the continued strong momentum of our business in the quarter and our progress year to date, we are once again raising our full year 2021 EPS guidance. We now expect adjusted earnings per share of $12.52 to $12.62, reflecting growth of 19% at the midpoint. Our strong performance allows us to continue to fully invest in the business for long-term growth. As you'll hear from Mike momentarily, we continue to make excellent progress across all stages of our research and development programs. In closing, I'm extremely pleased with our performance in the quarter and with our continued strong momentum of the business, which has positioned us well for the remainder of 2021 and many years to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff for additional comments on commercial highlights. Jeff?