Abbott Laboratories

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Abbott's third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. All participants will be able to listen only until the question and answer portion of this call. During the question and answer session, you will be able to ask your question by pressing the star 1 keys on your touchtone phone. Should you become disconnected throughout this conference call, please redial the number provided to you in reference to Abbott earnings call. This call is being recorded by Abbott. With the exception of any participants' questions asked during the question and answer session, the entire call, including the question and answer session, is material copyrighted by Abbott. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Abbott's express written permission. I would now like to introduce Mr. Scott Leinenweber, Vice President, Investor Relations, Licensing, and Acquisitions.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Miles White, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Robert Ford, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Brian Yor, Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Miles will provide opening remarks, and Brian will discuss our performance and outlook in more detail. Following their comments, we'll take your questions. Before we get started, some statements made today may be forward-looking for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the expected financial results for 2019. Abbott cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Economic, competitive, governmental, technological, and other factors that may affect Abbott's operations are discussed in Items 1A, Risk Factors, to our Annual Report on Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K, for the year ended December 31st, 2018. AVID undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except as required by law. Please note that financial results and guidance provided on the call today for sales, EPS, and line items of the P&L will be for continuing operations only. On today's conference call, as in the past, Non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Abbott's ongoing business performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled with the comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings news release and regulatory filings from today, which are available on our website at abbott.com. Unless otherwise noted, our commentary on sales growth refers to organic sales growth, which is defined in our earnings news release issued earlier today. With that, I will now turn the call over to Miles.

Okay, thanks, Scott. Good morning. Today we reported results of another strong quarter with ongoing earnings per share of 84 cents, reflecting 12% growth on an absolute basis and even higher growth when excluding the impact of currency. Sales increased more than 7.5% on an organic basis in the quarter, led by double-digit growth in medical devices and sequential improvements in established pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. We also narrowed our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance range to 323 to $3.25, which at current rates would reflect high teens growth, excluding the impact of currency, and is at the upper end of the range we set at the beginning of the year. As we've discussed previously, following our recent strategic shaping and acquisitions, we've been completely focused on running the company we built. This focus on organic execution is delivering strong performance on a remarkably consistent basis. Over the last eight quarters, we've averaged 7.5% organic sales growth worldwide with very little variation. We've also continued to strengthen our portfolio with new products, expanded access and reimbursement coverage, and generated new clinical data that further enhances the sustainability of our strong growth outlet going forward. I'm particularly pleased with the continued exceptional performance across several of our key growth platforms, including Freestyle Libre, MitraClip, and Alinity, which I'll highlight as I summarize our third quarter results in more detail. And I'll start in our medical devices business, where sales increased double digits for the second quarter in a row. In structural heart, we achieved 16% sales growth led by MitraClip, our market leading device for the treatment of mitral regurgitation or leaking heart valve. MitraClip sales increased more than 30% in the quarter, including U.S. growth of nearly 50%. During the quarter, we received U.S. FDA approval for our next generation MitraClip device, and we initiated the first ever U.S. pivotal trial for the minimally invasive treatment of tricuspid regurgitation, which will evaluate the safety and efficacy of our tri-clip repair system. Turning now to Freestyle Libre, our market-leading continuous glucose monitoring system that eliminates the need for routine finger sticks. We achieved sales of a half a billion dollars in the quarter and continue to add significantly to our global user base, as reflected by organic sales growth of nearly 70%. During the quarter, Freestyle Libre obtained public reimbursement coverage in Ontario and Quebec, becoming the first and only sensor-based glucose monitoring system to be listed by any provincial health plan in Canada. We also continued to advance our strategy to develop integrated solutions where people with diabetes can seamlessly manage their condition across devices, including recent announcements that we're seeking to integrate Libre with the insulin delivery technologies of Sanofi and Tandem, as well as the digital care platform of Omada Health. This easy-to-use, affordable device is changing the way millions of people manage their diabetes, and our ongoing efforts to expand awareness, adoption, and access for Libre around the world will drive tremendous growth for years to come. Turning now to diagnostics, where sales grew 6.5% in the quarter, led by double-digit growth in core laboratory diagnostics. The rollout of Alinity in Europe and other international markets continues to drive strong growth in our core laboratory business outside the US. In the US, where we continue to outperform the market with our legacy architect system, we've made good progress achieving regulatory approvals of immunoassay and clinical chemistry tests for Alinity and are beginning to ramp up our launch efforts in these areas. With highly differentiated instruments and a matrix rollout across multiple geographies and diagnostic testing areas over time, Alinity is well positioned to be a multi-year growth platform for our diagnostics business. In nutrition, sales increased nearly 4% in the quarter, led by double-digit growth in international adult nutrition for the third quarter in a row. In pediatric nutrition, above-market growth in the U.S. and several other countries was partially offset by challenging market dynamics in greater China, which comprises a little less than 10% of our overall nutrition sales. While consumers continue to trade after premium brands, which is the segment where we compete, we've seen volume in the market decline due to historically low birth rates. We remain focused on strengthening our portfolio and competitiveness across the various segments and purchasing channels in China, and given our broad portfolio and global footprint, anticipate continued strong performance across other geographies and long-term growth opportunities such as adult nutrition. I'll wrap up with established pharmaceuticals, or EPD, where sales increased 8% in the quarter, led by strong growth in several geographies, including India, China, and Brazil. Sales growth in EPD has now improved sequentially for each of the last three quarters. With leading market positions in several international growth geographies, EPD is well positioned for sustained above-market growth in some of the largest and fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets in the world. So in summary, we're performing... Well, across several areas of the portfolio, resulting in another quarter of strong sales and earnings growth. We continue to strengthen our product portfolios and key product platforms with a steady cadence of new product approvals, reimbursement coverage, and clinical data. And we're well on track to deliver ongoing EPS and organic sales growth at the upper ends of the ranges we set at the beginning of the year. I'll now turn the call over to Brian to discuss our results, and I'll look for the year in more detail. Brian? Okay. Thanks, Myles.