Qiagen N.V.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Katie and I will be your conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining QIAGEN's Q2 2024 earnings conference call webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. We will be, please be advised that the call is being recorded at QIAGEN's request and will be made available on their internet site. The prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. At this time, I would like to introduce your host, John Gilardi, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations at QIAGEN. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Katie, and welcome to all of you for joining our call. We appreciate your interest in QIAGEN. Our speakers today are Terry Bernard, our Chief Executive Officer, and Roland Sackers, our Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast live and will be archived on the Investors section of our website at www.kaizen.com. You can also find a copy of the quarterly results, press release, and presentation on our website. We will begin with remarks from Terry and Roland, followed by a Q&A session. So let's go over the Safe Harbor Statement. I would like to remind everyone that we will be discussing forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any statement that we make. The factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in our most recent Form 20F on file with the SEC and also available on our website. Additionally, we will refer to certain financial measures not prepared following generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. All references to EPS refer to diluted EPS. You can also find a reconciliation to the most directly comparable gap measures in our press release in the presentation. Now I'd like to hand over to Terry.

Thank you, John, and hello and very good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are in the world, and thank you once again for joining us. Our teams at QIAGEN executed well in the second quarter, delivering growth over quarter two of 2023. as well as sequential growth from the first quarter of 2024. In fact, our results position QIAGEN as among the fastest growing companies in the diversified tools sector. They also signal our conviction to accelerate our performance and achieve our updated outlook. Executing on our 2024 targets, will put us on a good trajectory to achieve the new mid-term targets we outlined at our Capital Markets Day that are underscored by our commitment to solid and profitable growth. Let me get you to our key messages for the quarter. First, QIAGEN marked another quarter of exceeding our outlook for sales and adjusted earnings. Net sales were 496 million dollars for the quarter, an increase of 1% at CER, constant exchange rates, over the second quarter of 2023. Most important, results at CER of 502 million dollars were 7 million ahead of the outlook for at least 495 million dollars. and sales were up 2% CER excluding pneumotics, and also up 8% CER in our diagnostic solutions product group, in light of our decision announced in June to phase out the pneumotic system. Our highly recurring revenues business led the performance, with consumable sales rising 3% CER and making up nearly 90% of our total sales. A trend that we have seen in the industry this quarter was the impact on instrument sales. In quarter two of 2024, overall, our instrument sales were down 10%. And if you include pneumatics, they were down 6% CER. Customers are indeed still cautious on capital investment and that includes larger scale instrument purchases as well. Adjusted earnings per share were 55 cents and also 55 cents at CER. This is 3 cents above our outlook for at least 52 cents. Second key message, our teams delivered important product advances in our portfolio serving customers from life science to clinical diagnostics. Let's start with Kyastat, our system for syndromic testing. Our teams delivered a very strong 12% CER growth in the second quarter, and we see this trend improving in the second half of the year on the back of two important product launches in the United States. First, our teams launched the new gastrointestinal panel in a record time in early July after we received FDA clearance in June. From marketing to operations to the sales force, this was a tremendous execution. And second, we also received FDA clearance during the second quarter for our upgraded respiratory panel, which now covers 21 pathogens, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Those milestones are important catalysts to attracting new customers in the U.S., and more new tests are on the way. The meningitis and encephalitis panel is on track with U.S. submissions this year, along with three new mini-panels, one involving respiratory targets and two for the gastrointestinal targets. We are also extremely excited about the expansion of Chiastat into new application with our pharma partners for companion diagnostic that will help guiding treatment decision for patients. If you remember, we noted at our capital market day that we now have in place the first pharma collaborations for chiostat diagnostic, and those involve panels test for chronic diseases. Our goal together with our pharma partner is to offer tests on chiostats that can be done rapidly while the patient is still undergoing a clinical examination and could live with a prescription if deemed a candidate for a given medicine. This indeed embodies our approach to clinical molecular diagnostics, decisive when it matters. On Quantiferon, we welcome the recent update to the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines in the U.S. for latent tuberculosis screening in children. Children of all age groups are now eligible for testing using Quantiferon, and this could open incremental latent TB tests to be converted every year. In any case, the potential for further growth in Quantiferon is strong, given that skin tests still make up well over 50% of the global annual latent TB testing market, including in the US. As you know, a key element of our strategy also involved reviewing our portfolio in light of market trends. You saw this this year again with the announcement in June about our decision to phase out pneumotics. This was indeed a difficult decision involving what we see as a great system and a great platform. But the market dynamics changed after the pandemic COVID-19 and we did not see a realistic pathway to developing this system in a value creating way. These decisions underscores our unwavering commitment to focus where we can develop profitable leadership positions. And last message, we have updated our 2024 outlook based on the solid core business performance in the first half along with the new MODX decision. Our sales for the first half of 2024 were about $15 million CER above our outlook. And this played a very key role in our decision to update the full year sales outlook for at least $1,985,000. at CER, while also taking into consideration our decision on pneumatics. We have also raised the outlook for adjusted EPS by 2 cents to $2.16 as we step up to our commitment for solid, profitable growth. This is also underscored by the adjusted operating income margin target at 28.5% of sales and the outstanding free cash flow generation. And now I would like to hand over to Roland for a review of the financial results.