Bausch + Lomb Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Bausch and Lomb's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to George Gutkowski, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Insights. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Participating on today's call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brent Saunders, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sam Eldosuke. In addition to this live webcast, a copy of today's live presentation and a replay of this conference call will be available on our website under the investor relations section. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our presentation today contains forward-looking information. We would ask that you take a moment to read the forward-looking legend at the beginning of our presentation as it contains important information. This presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures and ratios. For more information about these measures and ratios, please refer to slide one of the presentation. Non-GAAP reconciliations can be found in the appendix to the presentation posted on our website. Finally, the financial guidance in this presentation is effective as of today only. It is our policy to generally not update guidance until the following quarter unless required by law and not to update or affirm guidance other than through broadly disseminated public disclosure. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Brent.

Thank you, George, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We're going to follow a familiar format. I'll cover highlights from the fourth quarter and full year, and Sam will dive deeper on financials and provide 2024 guidance. I'll close by reviewing growth drivers, and then we'll take your questions. The first of our three key takeaways speaks for itself. Revenue growth in 2023, and in the fourth quarter in particular, exceeded our expectations and set the tone for 2024. Double-digit growth is always impressive, but even more so when you consider how we got there. Our quality of growth is what helps set us apart from others, and that will be enhanced as we've entered one of the most active launch years in our company's history. You've heard me talk about selling and operational excellence quite a bit. It's central to any discussion I have on company strategy and will dictate our success going forward. Here's the good news. We're making solid progress in both areas. Our dry eye franchise is a perfect example. The combined Mibo and Zydra Salesforce is the largest and I would argue most sophisticated in eye health. And when it comes to operations, our mindset hasn't changed. we're taking a methodical approach to addressing the challenges we face with the expectation that our supply chain will become a competitive advantage in time. Hasty climbers have sudden falls, as the saying goes, which means we won't lose sight of our long-term goals for short-term gains. The last takeaway is focused on innovation, which has been the driving force throughout Bausch & Lomb's 170-year history. We've made no secret of our desire to put innovation at the forefront once again. And we're doing that in two ways. First, we're expanding our internal R&D capabilities across our entire portfolio. From prescriptions to IOLs, we can and should explore all possibilities when it comes to building on the success of existing brands. Second, we're reloading our pipeline with a focus on areas of unmet need. Our reinvigorated business development function will play a key role there as we cast a wide net for potential game-changers. The roadmap slide has become a fixture in earnings presentations, and the roadmap itself continues to guide our strategic decision-making as we unlock the company's full potential in a thoughtful and phased approach. Each quarter, our progress indicator shifts steadily to the right as we move closer to phase two. Let's take a look at how we delivered against phase one goals in 2023, a report card of sorts with an understanding that I'm a tough grader. We've already touched on top line performance last year, but I'm happy to bring it up every chance I get. 12% constant currency revenue growth would earn the highest grade on its own. But again, I'm more impressed with how we did it. When it comes to selling excellence, we made significant strides in 2023 with a focus on high priority areas like dry eye. But with the number of planned launches in 2024, there's even more of an urgency to build on that work with a balanced approach across all categories. Business development is a function that has matured in short order last year. The most obvious example is our acquisition of Novartis' front of the eye assets, in addition to our acquisition of Blink eyedrops from Johnson & Johnson. Equally as important, the growing business development team has laid a groundwork for strategic dealmaking this year and beyond, with an eye towards sustainable growth. I'll group the last two items together. While they appear to have the lowest mark, a single checkmark, it's really more of an incomplete or too new to rate. Building leading digital capabilities in core areas and enhancing agility and innovation are broad organizational competencies that require discipline and time. That said, progress in those areas introducing the roadmap has certainly had an impact on margin expansion. We've covered revenue. My only add there would be that this is our third straight quarter of more than $1 billion in sales, our new normal. When it comes to individual segments, there is no lag. In fact, I only see opportunity, as both vision care and surgical, in particular, felt the effects of operational challenges. Some self-inflicted, others out of our control, yet both delivered impressive year-over-year growth. Now, let's address individual product performance, and I'll stick with the opportunity theme. Despite an average growth of more than 25% among the key franchises highlighted, they haven't realized their full potential, not by a long shot. Additional geographic expansion, new ways of reaching customers, including direct consumer engagement, and a persistent focus on providing the best customer experience possible will propel these products and others to new heights. Before I turn things over to Sam, I'd like to thank my 13,000 colleagues for their performance in 2023. And it's not just execution I'm grateful for. It's their belief in our potential and commitment to doing what it takes to get there. Sam?