Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Zimmer Biomet fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. If anyone needs assistance at any time during the conference, please press the star followed by the zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, February 3rd, 2023. Following today's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your push button phone. I would now like to turn the conference over to Carrie Maddox, Senior Vice President, Chief Communications and Administration Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I hope you are all well and safe. Welcome to Zimmer Biomet's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Brian Hansen, our Chairman, President, and CEO, EVP and CFO, Sukhi Upadhyay, and COO, Yvonne Tornos. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that our comments during this call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks and uncertainties. Please note, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, even if actual results or future expectations change materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for a detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties, in addition to the inherent limitations of such forward-looking statements. Additionally, the discussions on this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included within our Q4 earnings release, which can be found on our website, ZimmerBiomet.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian. Brian?

All right, great. Thanks, Carrie, and thanks to all of you for joining us this morning for the call. We've really got three sections for the call this morning. First, I'm going to talk briefly about our fourth quarter performance, and spend a few minutes on our team's, what I would just define as solid execution, as well as our innovation and drivers for continued strong performance. And then for the second section, as usual, Sukhi will provide more detail on the quarter itself, and very importantly, our 2023 guidance and expectations. And then, of course, we'll close things out by addressing any questions that you might have. Before we get started, I want to take a minute to thank really the ZB team, just the full ZB team. not only for their work in making Q4 another successful quarter, but also for their resilience, the innovative thinking and dedication to getting the job done throughout all of 2022, even in the face of very real adversity. There's no doubt in my mind that this team is the engine that is driving us forward. So again, thank you. And I can tell you that I'm very proud to be on this journey with you. And now as we turn to Q4 results, know that each and every one of you made the quarter happen. And I can tell you it was a solid quarter. We again saw better than expected growth driven by continued procedure recovery, strong execution, and a solid momentum with our new innovation. And as expected, we also benefited from some favorable comps in the quarter. Inside of this, we saw another quarter of positive year-over-year momentum in large joints. with our overall global hip and knee business growing more than 8% and 10% on an XFX basis. And our overall set category grew in the high single digits driven by strong performance in our business growth drivers, which, as we've said before, are sports, CMFT, and upper extremities, as well as the expected tailwind from VVP comps in our trauma business. That said, we are clearly seeing overall market stabilization but our fourth quarter execution and procedure recovery is still set against a macro backdrop that is challenging and fluid. Foreign currency has improved, but remains a challenge and supply inflation and staffing pressures continue. In fourth quarter, our team was once again able to navigate these challenges, you know, flexing what I would just define as a muscle memory that I think fortunately or unfortunately is a bit unique to ZB and has served us well over the past year during 2022. But make no mistake, the challenges are real and they're ongoing. But regardless of this environment, with COVID mainly in the rearview mirror, I have confidence that the ZB team will continue to deliver. Our culture, our strategy, innovation and execution are coalescing right now, driving tangible momentum and importantly, belief from the team. And as a result, confidence in our business continues to grow. Let me just give a few examples from Q4. In the quarter, we announced the approval of our new cementless knee form factor, which is adding to our persona family and strategically rounding out that portfolio. The first procedures have been completed with this new keel design, and the feedback, as expected, has been very positive. We continue to believe that our cementless knee penetration will grow significantly, and that this differentiated premium product can really accelerate that growth. It's early days, with full launch planned for the middle of the year, but make no mistake, this is a real growth driver for our new franchise. This launch builds on other recent product launches like KIPP Insights and our Identity Shoulder System introductions, bringing now our total to more than 50 new product launches from 2018 through 2022. And importantly, the largest majority of these launches came in markets we see growing in the mid single digits or better. That's really important, being launched in markets that we see growing in the mid-single digits or better. This strategic prioritization and output from our innovation pipeline has helped ZB more than double our vitality index over that time and, very importantly, increase our revenue in faster growth markets and sub-markets, which, of course, drives positive increases in our weighted average market growth. And that momentum continues. We expect to launch another 40-plus products between now and the end of 2025, once again with the majority of those launches in 4%-plus growth markets. This will drive further increases in our vitality index and weighted average market growth, and most importantly, bring real and meaningful innovation to the patients and customers that we serve. So what I know for sure is that our current momentum, very robust new product pipeline, and our strengthening balance sheet focused on accelerating our portfolio transformation, positions ZB well for the future. And as a result, I feel increasingly confident about ZB's ability to transform our business, drive growth, deliver value, and achieve our mission to alleviate pain and improve the quality of life for people around the world. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Sukhi for a closer look at Q4, and again, our expectations for 2023. Okay, Sukhi?