West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2021 West Pharmaceutical Services Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star and then the number 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. If you require assistance during the conference, press star and then the number 0. I would now like to hand the comments over to Quentin Lai, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Amanda. Good morning, and welcome to West's third quarter 2021 conference call. We issued our financial results this morning, and the release has been posted in the investor section on the company's website located at westpharma.com. This morning, CEO Eric Green and CFO Bernard Burkett will review our financial results provide an update on our business, and present an update on our full year 2021 financial guidance. There's a slide presentation that accompanies today's call, and a copy of the presentation is available on the investor section of our website. On slide four is our safe harbor statement. Statements made by the management on this call and in the accompanying presentation contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities law. These statements are based on our beliefs and assumptions, current expectations, estimates, and forecasts. The company's future results are influenced by many factors beyond the control of the company. Actual results could differ materially from past results, as well as those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement made here. Please refer to today's press release, as well as any other disclosures made by the company regarding the risk to which it is subject, including our 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K reports. During today's call, management will make reference to non-GAAP financial measures, including organic sales growth, adjusted operating profit, adjusted operating profit margin, and adjusted diluted EPS. Reconciliations and limitations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable financial results prepared in conformity to GAAP are provided in this morning's earnings release. I now turn the call over to West's CEO and President, Eric Green.

Thank you, Quentin, and good morning, everyone. And thanks for joining us today. We will start on slide five. Our team delivered an incredibly strong third quarter. Our proven market-led strategy delivered double-digit growth across all three market units and geographies. And excluding positive impact from sales related to the pandemic, we delivered double-digit growth in our base business. with continued strong adoption of our high-value products, coupled with solid execution and leveraging our global operating model, it has led to robust margin expansion and EPS growth for the quarter. Our Q3 performance was made possible by the commitment of the West team members across the globe. We are in the business of helping our customers bring new medicines and treatments that improve the lives of patients. I'm very proud and humbled of how we live our purpose by producing billions of components and devices each quarter. And we do so with the knowledge that each and every component we make is impacting patients' life. We continue to fulfill our purpose by earning our customers' trust by leading with quality, service, and science. Looking ahead. We are well positioned with the right growth strategy. Our committed order book remains robust. We continue to capture the benefits of the globalization of our operating network and continued capital investments to support the increasing demand driven by the pandemic and attractive end markets. With this substantial momentum, we are raising our sales and EPS guidance for the full year 2021. And for the 29th consecutive year, we are increasing the company's dividend. Berner will go into greater detail shortly. Turning to slide six. Our key drivers of growth in Q3 are being fueled by COVID-19 customers that are using our stoppers and seals, including the highest level of NovaPeer and Floritech. Biologic customers that are shifting preference from Floritech to our premium platform, Novopure, to achieve the highest quality and tightest specifications for their newly approved biologic drugs. And pharma and generic customers that are increasing orders as their demand grows for non-COVID-19 vaccines and injectable drugs. Shifting to our device portfolio and our longstanding partnership with Daikyo Seiko, we continue to see adoption and uptick of customer interest for new pipeline drugs with Crystal Xena syringes, cartridges, and vials. To meet this demand and stay ahead of the current growth trends for future approvals, we have continued to add manufacturing capacity for CZs. our teams have successfully validated additional lines for insert needle syringes and will begin producing commercial product by the end of the year. All these products, as well as other HVP components, are contributing to our growing book of committed orders, which position us well for the remainder of the year and into 2022 and beyond. Moving to slide 7. To date, we have been leveraging our global infrastructure and tapping it into the agility of our own team to meet the increased customer orders. As we highlighted in Q2, several phases of investment are proceeding and now being realized. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have expanded capacity at 13 existing sites with 30 major facility modifications. dedicated over $300 million of capital, and added over 400 incremental pieces of equipment, all while keeping pace with the growing base demand and moving our operations to 24-7. As our book of committed orders continues to surge, we will continue to make further strategic investments to meet demand. Today... we're announcing a fourth phase of capacity expansion that will commence in 2022. This will primarily focus on expanding NovaPure production at our HPP sites in the United States and Europe. Shifting to the rapidly changing environment and the impact of COVID-19 on the global supply chain, no industry has been immune to this impact. We're working with our partners to help overcome challenges that span from transportation and logistics to raw materials and securing labor, all leading to cost inflation and delays. We are successfully navigating this environment, thanks in part to our unsurpassed manufacturing footprint that will continue to serve our business well as we operate through these unprecedented times. Turning to slide eight. I'm proud of the significant progress we have made on our ESG priorities. These have been an integral part of our One West culture and our commitment to all our stakeholders and the communities where we work and live. Over the past six years, we continue to raise the bar in all aspects of our ESG initiatives and we remain on track to publish by year-end a supplement to our 2020 Corporate Responsibility Report incorporating the SASB and TSFD ESG standards. Now I'll turn it over to our CFO, Bernard Paquette, who will provide more detail on the financial performance.