Avantor, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Emily and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Avantor's third quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. After the prepared remarks, there will be the opportunity for you to ask any questions, which you can do so by pressing start, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Christina Jones, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms.

Jones, you may begin the conference. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Our speakers today are Michael Stubblefield, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brent Jones, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The press release and a presentation accompanying this call are available on our investor relations website at ir.avantoursciences.com. A replay of this webcast will also be made available on our website after the call. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate may occur in future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings. Actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or other developments. This call will include a discussion of non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures can be found in the press release and in the supplemental disclosure package on our Investor Relations website. With that, I will now turn the call over to Michael.

Thank you, CJ, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. I'm starting on slide three. We delivered another solid quarter with inline performance across all key financial metrics. Reported revenue increased sequentially to $1.71 billion, while organic revenue declined 0.7% year over year. We were encouraged by another quarter of outperformance in bioprocessing as strong order rates continue. as well as sequential and year-over-year growth in our laboratory solutions segment. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.6%, and adjusted EPS increased to 26 cents in the quarter. Sequential mixed headwinds were largely offset by strong realization of savings from our cost transformation initiative. Our disciplined approach to working capital drove another quarter of best-in-class free cash flow conversion. This enabled us to pay down over $200 million of debt bringing our net leverage down to 3.8 times. Given our strong year-to-date performance, we are raising our free cash flow guidance for the year. On October 17th, we successfully closed the previously announced divestiture of our clinical services assets, which provided support for customers engaged in clinical trial activities with kitting, biorepository, and archiving services. This divestiture allows us to focus on our lab and production platforms, where we have strategically advantaged position and scale, higher growth entitlements, and lower capital investment needs. After a highly competitive process, we are confident we receive full value for the business. The $500 million in after tax proceeds, combined with our strong cash generation, accelerates our path to achieving adjusted net leverage of less than three times. In addition to our strong operating results this quarter, We also made considerable progress in advancing our long-term growth strategy. Recent highlights include the expansion of our magnetic mixing systems portfolio with the introduction of a new tabletop mixer. We launched this new product at the recent Bioprocess International Conference in Boston, where we showcased our innovation capabilities with multiple scientific and keynote presentations. In our lab segment, we launched several new third-party branded products, including Agilent advanced analytical instruments for advanced battery and sustainable energy applications. Sarstedt life science and blood collection consumables as their first major U.S. distribution partner. And Oxford Nanopore's grid ion long read NGS sequencer. Further expanding our collaboration with Oxford Nanopore to bring this higher throughput instrument to market in Europe and the Americas. We officially opened our new flagship innovation center in Bridgewater, New Jersey. This 60,000 square foot facility, staffed with PhD scientists, biopharma engineers, biologists, and bioengineers, is one of 13 Avantour Innovation Centers globally, dedicated to solving life sciences' biggest challenges. The Bridgewater Innovation Center includes capabilities for upstream and downstream process development, pilot plant for scale-up simulations, and analytical and bioanalytical labs that support multiple modalities, including monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapies, and protein peptide therapeutics. Our new cell business received an award from the prestigious Kaizen Institute for Excellence in Process Improvement and Quality Management. I recently had the opportunity to visit this team in California and witnessed firsthand how their commitment to the Avantour business system is driving tangible operational results and fostering strong employee engagement, consistent with our culture of continuous improvement. We continue to improve the efficiency and productivity of our supply chain operations. In the quarter, we completed major technology installations at our Visalia, California site and opened a new facility in Devons, Massachusetts to support our fluid handling business. We advanced our sustainability platform and recently received an updated rating from EcoVedas, a global leader in business sustainability assessments that places Avantor in the top 17% of over 130,000 rated companies globally. Additionally, we signed our first virtual power purchase agreement through the energized program a pharmaceutical industry sponsored program that will reduce our energy costs and deliver renewable energy to our operations across Europe. Finally, our team continues to effectively execute our multi year cost transformation initiative with several critical work streams ahead of schedule. We are confident that we will exceed our in your cost savings target of $75 million in 2024. Turning to our segment results, laboratory solutions modestly outperformed our plan, returning to growth for the first time in two years. Within biopharma, overall market conditions remained relatively stable. Year-over-year increases in biotech funding have not yet translated into increased preclinical spending, and large pharma continued their pattern of cautious spending and prioritizing their clinical pipelines. In our other end markets, core diagnostic testing demand remained strong. and we delivered growth in both our education and government and applied end markets, underscoring the strength of our diversified platform. Consumables and services performed well, and equipment and instrumentation demand improved modestly from first half levels. In bioscience production, bioprocessing end market conditions continued to improve. Production levels increased, and this quarter the FDA approved 13 additional biologics and protein peptide therapies for various indications, including oncology, Alzheimer's, and ulcerative colitis. In line with these strengthening conditions, our bioprocessing cells outperformed our expectations of a low single-digit decline, finishing flat year over year. Strong order momentum once again reinforces our confidence in mid to high single-digit bioprocessing growth in the fourth quarter. Outside of bioprocessing, we saw sequential growth in biomaterials. offset by declines in our advanced technology sales in the U.S. In summary, we delivered another quarter of solid performance. Our cost transformation is ahead of plan, and we have raised our free cash flow guidance for the year. Order momentum in bioprocessing continues, and we are encouraged by the return to growth in our laboratory solutions segment. With that, I'll now turn it over to Brent to walk you through our third quarter results in more detail.