Merck & Co., Inc.

Good morning. My name is Drala, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Merck's first quarter 2019 sales and earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To answer your question, press the pound key. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Terry Locksum, SCP Investor Relations and Global Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Darlene. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Merck's first quarter 2019 conference call. Today I'm joined by Ken Frazier, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rob Davis, our Chief Financial Officer, and Dr. Roger Perlmutter, President of Merck Research Labs, who will each have prepared remarks. In addition, I'm also joined by Mike Nally, our Chief Marketing Officer, and Frank Clyburn, our Chief Commercial Officer, who will be available for the Q&A portion of the call. Before I turn the call over to Ken, I'd like to point out a few items. You will see that we have items in our GAAP results, such as acquisition-related charges, restructuring costs, and certain other items. You should note that we have excluded these from our non-GAAP results and provide a reconciliation of these in our press release. We have also provided a table in our press release to help you understand the sales in the quarter for the business units and products. I would like to remind you that some of the statements that we made during today's call may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are made based on the current beliefs of Merck's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. If our underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Our SEC filings, including Item 1A in 2018-10K, identify certain risk factors and cautionary statements that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any of our forward-looking statements made this morning. Merck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. You can see our SEC filings as well as today's earnings release on Merck.com. Finally, similar to last quarter, we have posted a presentation to the investor section of Merck.com, which includes some of our highlights from the quarter. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Ken.

Thank you, Terri. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. We had a very strong start to 2019, and we are seeing our fundamental strategy of investing thoughtfully in R&D and following the science payoff. Our current portfolio of assets continues to drive strong growth, and we are working to ensure that we capture the near-term opportunities in front of us to maintain this momentum while planning for the next generation of treatments. Our first quarter performance with double-digit year-over-year sales and EPS growth are the results of portfolio and operational strength driven by oncology, vaccines, and select hospital and specialty products. We're confident that products within these areas, including Keytruda, Lempriza, Lembema, Gardasil, Brideon, and others, together with our animal health franchise, will lead to strong growth over the coming years. Our performance in the first quarter also speaks to our success globally, as we've received a number of additional approvals and launched new products in various markets around the world. Our international business, which represented nearly 60% of our sales this quarter, has strong momentum, and we believe that we've only scratched the surface in terms of the opportunity in key markets, such as China, where we are seeing significant growth. We foresee a stream of additional approvals from our current portfolio of products across markets globally, And we will look to maximize these opportunities powered by our commercial team's proven ability to execute. In parallel, we are also focused on advancing our promising pipeline and continuing to augment our internal research and development efforts with external innovation. We are excited by the prospects of our pipeline, which include potential new treatments and vaccines, oncology, HIV, and many other areas of significant and ongoing unmet needs. There is also impressive work underway in our discovery hubs in Cambridge, London, and South San Francisco, where we are incorporating some of the most scientifically advanced modalities and technologies in the world. Importantly, these hubs are located where many of the best biotech and scientific minds are gathered, and we're benefiting from the vibrant academic and biotech communities in each of our respective hubs. Finally, we're continuing to evolve in a rapidly changing industry environment to best position work for sustainable, profitable growth over the long term, while helping to drive positive outcomes for patients. The overall healthcare landscape remains dynamic as the industry grapples with complex issues such as the rising cost of health care generally, pharmaceutical pricing and access, and the shift to more outcomes-based reimbursement systems. At the same time, we believe that demand for even better outcomes for more innovative medicines will continue around the world, given the vast and growing unmet need in cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and in so many other areas. As the global population continues to grow, while countries, certain countries, age. As a result, we will remain steadfast in going where the science leads us in order to bring forward transformative medicines and vaccines. We are confident in our strategy, our growth prospects, and our ability to continue to deliver significant benefits for patients and value to shareholders in 2019 and beyond. We look forward to discussing these matters in more detail with you at our Investor Day in June, where we plan to give you a deeper understanding of our pipeline and company and provide you with the opportunity to meet a broader set of our scientists and business leaders. With that, I'll pass the call over to Rob to go through the details of our quarterly results. Rob?