Baxter International Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Baxter International's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Your lines will remain in a listen-only mode until the question and answer segment of today's call. At that time, if you have a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touch-tone phone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded by Baxter and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Baxter's permission. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Claire Trackman, Senior Vice President, Chief Investor Relations Officer at Baxter International. Ms. Trackman, you may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Brent Shaper, Baxter's Chair and Interim Chief Executive Officer, Joel Grady, Baxter's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Heather Knight, Baxter's Chief Operating Officer. On the call this morning, we will be discussing Baxter's first quarter 2025 results along with our financial outlook for the second quarter and full year 2025. With that, let me start our prepared remarks by reminding everyone that this presentation, including comments regarding our financial outlook for the second quarter and full year 2025, the anticipated impact of our strategic action, the potential impact of various regulatory and operational matters in the global macroeconomic environment, including new and proposed tariffs on our results of operations contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. And of course, our actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more detail concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. In addition, on today's call, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand factors ongoing business performance. A reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures being discussed today to the comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the accompanying investor presentation and available in our earnings release issued this morning, both of which are available on our website. As a reminder, continuing operations excludes Baxter's kidney care business, which is now reported as discontinued operations. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Brent. Brent?

Thanks, Claire, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Our results for the first quarter reflect the building momentum of our strategic transformation journey and the hard work of our Baxter colleagues globally. As you saw in this morning's press release, our first quarter performance for continuing operations exceeded our previously issued guidance on both the top and bottom line. We're leveraging our verticalized operating model to create a more agile, focused product portfolio and advance innovation, improve execution, and drive profitable growth. First quarter sales from continuing operations grew 5% on a reported and operational basis. As a reminder, continuing operations exclude the impact of our kidney care business, which was acquired by Carlyle on January 31, 2025. Sales rose in all three of Baxter's continuing segments with performance in medical products and therapies and healthcare systems and technologies coming in ahead of expectations. Heather and Joel will share more on individual segment results later in the call. On the bottom line, adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.55. These results were fueled by top line performance, our continued emphasis on driving operational efficiency, and a benefit from lower non-operational expenses. We're pleased with our strong Q1 performance and confident in our strategic trajectory. At the same time, we're cognizant of the volatility that is present in the global macro environment and the resulting uncertainty that has been created in the marketplace. We, like others, are keenly focused on evaluating and working to address the impact of newly enacted global tariffs and future potential tariffs, as well as a range of other interrelated factors. As you're all aware, this remains an evolving and fluid situation. Joe will walk you through our key assumptions as they relate to our financial outlook for the remainder of this year, and also how we plan to mitigate a portion of these impacts. To be clear, we remain positive about our opportunities to accelerate sales growth and expand margins. We continue to build on the strengths of our operating model and the reinvigorated profile. And as always, we benefit from our durable portfolio of medically essential products. which has served as the underlying foundation of our strength for decades. Finally, I want to address a topic that I'm certain is on your mind, which is the identification of Baxter's next permanent CEO. While I'm not able to provide a detailed update, I can confirm that the search process is active and well underway, with the board being assisted by a leading search firm in these efforts. As I shared previously, the board is moving expeditiously, but also deliberately. to make sure we identify the right candidate to make the most of this opportunity to harness the potential our employees have helped create. We will, of course, keep our stakeholders updated on new developments as we are able to share them. In closing, I want to recognize our global team for their dedication to our mission and outstanding contributions to Q1 performance. With that, I'll turn it over to Heather for a closer look at performance by segment.