Becton, Dickinson and Company

Hello and welcome to BD's third fiscal quarter 2019 earnings call. At the request of BD, today's call is being recorded. It will be available for replay through August 13, 2019 on the Investors page of the BD.com website. or by phone at 800-585-8367 for domestic calls and area code 404-537-3406 for international calls using confirmation number 1475284. I would like to inform all parties that your lines have been placed in a listen-only mode until the question and answer segment. Beginning today's call is Ms. Monique DeLecke, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. DeLecke, you may begin.

Thank you, Lori. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review our third fiscal quarter results. As we referenced in our press release, we are presenting a set of slides to accompany our remarks on this call. The presentation is posted on the Investor Relations page of our website at bd.com. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, and it is possible that actual results could differ from our expectations. Factors that could cause such differences appear in our third fiscal quarter press release and in the MD&A sections of our recent SEC filings. We will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures with respect to our performance. Reconciliations to GAAP measures that include the details of purchase accounting and other adjustments can be found in our press release and its related financial schedules and in the appendix of the investor relations slides. A copy of the release, including the financial schedules, is posted on the BD.com website. As a reminder, to provide additional revenue visibility, we will speak to our fiscal 2019 third quarter revenue results and fiscal 2019 revenue guidance on a comparable currency neutral basis. The comparable basis includes BD and BARD in the current and prior year periods and excludes intercompany revenues and revenues associated with divestitures, among other adjustments. Leading the call this morning is Vince Forlenza, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Also joining us are Chris Reedy, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer, Tom Poland, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Alberto Moss, Executive Vice President and President of the Medical Segment, Simon Campion, Executive Vice President and President of the Interventional Segment, and Patrick Kaltenbach, Executive Vice President and President of the Life Sciences Segment. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Vince.

Thank you, Monique, and good morning, everyone. At BD, our strategy is driven by our purpose. advancing the world of health. Our results this quarter demonstrate that our strategy is working and our core remains strong. Our progress with Bard is enabling us to deliver even more impactful, comprehensive solutions for our customers. Turning to slide five and our third quarter highlights. Our third quarter performance was strong. Revenue growth reflects the planned back half acceleration that we've been discussing with you throughout the year. As expected, growth was broad-based, and we drove mid-single-digit growth in all three segments. Third quarter EPS was also in line with our expectation, and our results through the first nine months of the fiscal year are right on track. As we approach the final year of the deal model, we continue to successfully integrate BARD as evidenced by our sustained top-line momentum, cadence of new product launches, and and progress towards our cost and revenue synergy capture. We're also pleased with the level of engagement across the organization as our associates are highly motivated by a common purpose. Looking forward to the remainder of fiscal year 2019, we expect momentum from the third quarter to continue and are reaffirming our full fiscal year 2019 revenue and EPS guidance. I'll now turn things over to Chris for a more detailed discussion of our third quarter financial performance and our fiscal year 2019 guidance.