Alcon Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Dan Cravens, Vice President and Global Head, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Welcome to Alcon's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Yesterday, we issued a press release, an interim financial report, and posted a supplemental slide presentation on our website to enhance today's call. You can find all these documents in the investor relations section on our website at investor.alcon.com. Joining me on today's call are David Endicott, our chief executive officer, and Tim Stonecipher, our chief financial officer. Our press release, presentation, and discussion will include forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future developments, except as required by law. Our actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements are included in Alcon's Form 20F and our earnings press release and interim financial report on file with the Securities Exchange Commission and available on the SEC's website at sec.gov. Non-IFRS financial measures used by the company may be calculated differently from and therefore may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used in other companies. These non-IFRS measures should be considered along with, but not as alternative to, the operating performance measures as prescribed by IFRS. Please see a reconciliation between our non-IFRS measures with directly comparable measures presented in accordance with IFRS in our public filings. For discussion purposes only, our comments on growth are expressed in constant currency. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, David Endicott.

Thanks, Dan. Welcome to Alcon's second quarter 2022 earnings call. I'll begin by giving a brief update on our second quarter results, overall market dynamics, and recent performance. After my comments, Tim will discuss our second quarter performance and our outlook for the remainder of the year. Then I'll wrap up with some closing remarks and we'll open the call for Q&A. I'm pleased to report that we had another strong quarter despite broad macroeconomic headwinds with sales growth of 10%, core operating margin of 18.4%, and core diluted earnings per share of 63 cents. These results were driven by our innovative product portfolio, strong commercial execution, and continued improvements in international markets as they recover from COVID-19. Overall, our surgical franchise continues to lead the market with our portfolio of advanced technology intraocular lenses, our substantial installed base of equipment, and our growing consumables base. Now, at Planables, we remain the market leader in PCI wells due to the strong customer reception for Vividi and Panoptix. Alcon is taking share in key international markets and exited the quarter with approximately 55% of the global PCI well market, up five percentage points from when we launched Vividi in the first quarter of 2020. In the U.S., we've maintained our leading PCI well market share of over 80% despite competitive products that entered the market last year. In equipment, we continue to lead the market on the strength of our innovative cataract suite. Interest in ActiveSentry remains strong. If you recall, ActiveSentry is the most advanced FACO handpiece where the system's fluidics are controlled through sensors near the eye. This unique feature reduces surge and improves safety. Innovations like ActiveSentry, as well as our leading Centurion technology, are driving favorable account conversions as we upgrade legacy FACO equipment to Centurion in our international markets. We're also seeing momentum for our Legion FACO machine in international markets among surgeons who are looking for premium performance on a portable machine and at a lower cost per use. Additionally, we saw another strong quarter in our consumables business, which grew high single digits versus last year in line with the recovery in procedural volumes. Earlier in the quarter, we participated in the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Conference, where we showcased a robust scientific program. Data was presented that highlights the sharp, crisp vision and glistening free clarity of Clarion, our most advanced IOL material. Clarion has been implanted in more than one million eyes and is now available on most of our IOL and PCIOL platforms across key geographies. In addition, surgeons at the meeting presented a real-world study highlighting that our Argos Biometer delivers significant time savings in cataract evaluation. This is becoming an increasingly critical element for surgeons looking to improve practice efficiency, especially given current levels of staff turnover. Innovation and data presented at the event demonstrates that our products and services continue to support surgeons in delivering increased efficiencies and improved patient outcomes. Now moving to vision care, our new and recent product launches, including our Precision One family lenses, Total 30, and Daly's Total One for Astigmatism, continue to drive momentum. We're particularly excited about having two CyHi toric lenses in the market, Precision One for Astigmatism, which is aimed at the mainstream market, and Daly's Total One for Astigmatism for the premium segment. Daly's Total One for Astigmatism has been eagerly anticipated by eye care professionals for years, and customer reception has been very strong. This is the first and only daily disposable toric lens to feature water gradient surface material. With this lens' exceptional comfort, eye care professionals are well positioned to fit and keep more astigmatic patients in contact lenses. This has contributed to our growing share of the daily toric market, which is the fastest growing market segment. Additionally, we continue to see positive uptake of Total 30, our newest reusable lens. This water gradient lens is nearly as soft as the cornea itself and is almost 100% water at the surface. It creates a lens that is exceptionally comfortable, yet durable for 30 days of wear. We've now rolled out Total 30 in both Europe and the US, and we're preparing to launch Total 30 for astigmatism early next year. With new entries in daily reusable and specialty lenses, we're excited about the progress we're making in new and switched fits. which is a strong leading indicator of long-term share growth. Finally, turning to ocular health, we continue to see strong retail, consumer, and physician interest in our portfolio of eye drops. Sales of our popular sustained family of artificial tears grew in the high single digits, driven by the recent launches of our multi-dose preservative-free formulations in the United States and international markets. Simbrinza also continues to contribute nicely to our portfolio of eye drops. Recall that we've invested in a new sales force dedicated to supporting our portfolio of eye drops in the United States. Now let me provide an update on our end markets. In surgical, global cataract procedures were up high single digits in the second quarter versus prior year. This excludes the impact of the market recovery in India, which was significantly impacted by COVID-19 last year. Against this backdrop, we saw significant growth in our implantables business, driven by the strength of our advanced technology lenses our commercial execution, and international market recovery. In VisionCare, the market growth was very dynamic and varied by region. United States grew mid-single digits, in line with historical averages, while Europe and Japan, which were impacted more significantly by COVID-19 in the second quarter of last year, grew double digits. To summarize, despite the macro and supply chain challenges we've faced, I'm very pleased with the strong underlying performance of our business in the second quarter. We grew revenue 10% while continuing to invest in the business. Our robust innovation pipeline is delivering solid results as evidenced by the successful launches of our new ATIOLs and SIGHI contact lenses. We continue to drive operating leverage, and our second quarter 2022 core operating margin expanded by 170 basis points on a constant currency basis over the prior year. And given the current economic environment, we'll continue to take measures to offset some of the headwinds as we are well-positioned to succeed in the future. With that, let me pass it to Tim, who will take you through our financial results and provide an outlook for the rest of the year.