Stevanato Group S.p.A.

Good afternoon. This is the course called Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Stevanato Group Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Lisa Miles, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Madam.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today is Franco Stevinato, Executive Chairman, Franco Moro, Chief Executive Officer, and Marco De Lago, Chief Financial Officer. A presentation illustrating today's results can be found on the IR section of our website. As a reminder, some statements being made today will be forward-looking in nature. Such statements are only predictions. Actual events and results may differ materially as a result of risks we face, including those discussed in Item 3D entitled Risk Factors in the company's annual report on Form 20F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We encourage you to review the information contained in our earnings release in conjunction with our SEC filings and our latest Form 20F. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances except as required by law. Today's presentation may contain non-GAAP financial information. Management uses this information in its internal analyses of results and believe this information may be informative to investors in gauging the quality of our financial performance, identifying trends in our results, and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons. For a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures, please see the company's most recent earnings press release. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Franco Stavinato for opening remarks.

Thank you, Lisa. As we come into the final month of 2022, we believe the fundamentals of our business remain strong, with favorable secular tailwinds in growing end markets. We are successfully exhibiting against our long-term strategic and operational objectives. The industry demand trend remains healthy, And we expect this to continue as the global pipeline for new treatment in development hits record levels, with approximately 60% tied to injectable delivery. We believe the bias toward injectable delivery formats is boosted by several macro trends, such as the growth in biologic and biosimilar, the rise of chronic disease, pharmaceutical innovation, and self-administration of treatment. We believe our integrated end-to-end capability and robust portfolio of injectable products are ideally suited to match the scientific requirement of highly sensitive treatment, such as GLP-1. Today, we are leader in diabetes treatment and maintaining a significant presence in the adoption of GLP-1, with business across both segments, demonstrating the value of our integrated offering. Thanks to the scientific and technological capability at our Technology Excellence Center, we are supporting customers in the early stage development of a new molecule and building a robust pipeline of promising opportunity. In this way, we accompany our customers alongside our pipeline with our unique and integrated value proposition. We are leveraging our proven expertise and leadership position in ready-to-use bias and cartridges to forge innovative products such as our next-generation easy-to-smart platform. All in all, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the many opportunities ahead of us as we drive durable organic growth and create long-term shareholder value. I will now hand the call over to Franco. Thank you, Franco. On slide 7, for the third quarter of 2022, we delivered another solid quarter of double-digit revenue growth and achieved adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.8%. Revenue from high-value solutions grew 54% to 74.4 million euros, representing 30% of total revenue in the third quarter of 2022. While we are pleased with financial results, an increase in inflationary costs, particularly utility and logistics costs, tempered gross profit margin in the third quarter. Since that time, utility prices have started to come down from recent highs, and like everyone else, We are proactively managing the complexities around inflation and supply chains. We implemented efforts to mitigate the effects, and we believe we are successfully navigating the current environment. We remain optimistic on the demand landscape and our long-term growth trajectory. For the third quarter, new order intake totaled 247 million euros, The year-over-year decrease was due to a significant drop in COVID-19 orders. Excluding COVID, new order intake increased by approximately 6% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to last year, demonstrating that the underlying demand trends remain strong. At the end of the third quarter, our committed backlog increased 21% to just over 1 billion euros. On slide eight, we recently announced the next evolution of our ready-to-use wire platform called Easy Feel Smart. Our R&D and continuous innovation allow us to further improve our ready-to-use platform. With our collaboration with Gerrit Scheimer, we implemented several advancements. First, we increased automation in the manufacturing process to drive art of productivity and reduce human error. The optimized platform features no glass-to-glass and no glass-to-metal contact, which improves the quality and integrity of the buyers throughout the product lifecycle. Second, the teams redesigned the nest and tap configuration which significantly reduces the risk of particle contamination during the fill and finish process. This is a substantial step up in quality, integrity, and performance. And so, we are introducing an alternative sterilization method that is more environmentally friendly compared to traditional ethylene oxide sterilization. This offers a path to improved sustainability. Together, all of these improvements are projected to further lower the total cost of ownership, increase quality, and shorten lead times for customers. Our easy-fill platform is a well-established standard in the industrial process for ready-to-use drug containment solutions. This standardization ensures a seamless integration with the standard film and finish operations and offers customers a secure and multi-source supply chain. Our efforts to drive continuous innovation are squarely in line with our long-term strategy of providing value-added, integrated solutions to our customers as we solidify our presence as a key partner to pharma and biotech. On page nine, we are making good progress in our priority projects in the U.S., Italy, and China. Our global capacity expansion plans are in response to growing demand for high-performance containment products to help ensure the integrity of highly sensitive treatments, such as gel T1s, monoclonal antibodies, and mRNA applications. We have already received a warm reception from customers who are pleased with the strategic investment in our easy-fill technology. The improved proximity to pharma and CDMOs and the commonality across our technology and quality standards worldwide. In the United States, construction on our new building in Indiana is well underway, and we still expect revenue generation to begin sometime in late 2023 to early 2024. In Italy, renovations are progressing in Latina, and the new building in Piombino-Dese is nearly complete. In the meantime, we are adding much-needed easy-fill capacity in our existing operations. In China, we started preliminary work on the renovations of the facility, while the design phase is still ongoing. We are focused on successfully executing on these projects and strengthening the regional organizational structures. The teams are doing an extraordinary job in supporting the evolving needs of customers amid favorable demand. On slide 10, I'm proud to announce that Stevanato and Bexon Biomedical were awarded the 2022 Partnership Innovation Award by the Parental Drug Association. These awards recognize an innovative pain management therapy deliver through Stevanato's on-body delivery system. We are working with Beckson to optimize the subcutaneous delivery of non-opioid pain management treatment that is specifically designed to help prevent misuse to control dosing and extended delivery. It enables patients to manage their condition at home, which lowers cost and improves patient care. A wearable device features a reusable cradle, which minimizes the impact of electronic environmental waste. And while this treatment is in preclinical stages, it is strategically important as the trend towards the self-administration of medicine evolves over the next decade. I now hand the call over to Marco.