Bausch + Lomb Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Bosch and LOMS first quarter 2024 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 Getkowski, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Insights. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Participating on today's call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brent Saunders, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sam Aldasuki. In addition to this live webcast, a copy of today's slide 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 1 of the presentation. Non-GAAP reconciliations can be found in the appendix to the presentation posted on our website. 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 marks nearly one year since my first earnings call following my return to Bausch & Lomb. We've accomplished quite a bit in that timeframe, which we'll cover as we review first quarter performance and highlight growth drivers for the remainder of the year. These areas of focus are familiar to you by now and continue to drive our strategy. Let's start with revenue. We saw 20% top line growth on a constant currency basis for the quarter, thanks to outperformance from each of our business units. Our quality of growth isn't limited to reporting segments, as we delivered solid results across geographies. In other words, we're in an enviable position of not being reliant on one business or region as drivers of our performance. Our methodical approach to improving how we make and sell things is bearing fruit. A renewed focus on launch excellence is reflected in early returns for my boat and ongoing expansion of our latest daily side high contact lens offerings. Operationally, we're making strides on improving service levels within our own network. And while contract manufacturing continues to present a challenge, We have plans in motion to lessen our reliance on third parties over time. Finally, a relentless focus on returning to our roots by prioritizing innovation is producing tangible results. Our Invista Aspire IOL has made a strong market entry, and we have a steady stream of premium IOL launches planned through 2026. Last quarter, I mentioned a talent infusion for our R&D team, and that hasn't let up. We continue to make prominent hires throughout 2024. The scientific community recognizes our pivot, and people want to be part of what we're building. The main takeaway from our roadmap slide is the progress indicator. Why caution against assuming every phase one box has been checked after an exhaustive effort to rethink how we work the rewiring process is largely complete. That means we're gearing up for phase two, innovate and execute. I'd like to acknowledge the human aspect of an undertaking like this. Stating the obvious, roadmaps only work if people follow them. When I rejoined Bausch & Lomb, I made it very clear that in order for the company to achieve its full potential, we needed to make some tough decisions while operating at a speed some weren't accustomed to. Instead of shying away from a break with the status quo, colleagues around the world embraced it. Under the direction of a refreshed leadership team, our workforce of 13,000 has met every challenge along the way and remained focused on the opportunity in front of us. I prefer always looking forward, but sometimes it's important to look back. Last May, in the same setting, I was clear about the challenges we faced. Underutilization was holding us back. We had a robust global commercial network and supply chain, but not enough product flow. That led to inefficiencies and jeopardized some of our customer relationships we'd built over decades. We needed to reinvent our company in a thoughtful but urgent way. I'm proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the 363 days since. We addressed our supply chain issues head-on with the understanding that turning our manufacturing and distribution network into a competitive advantage would take years, not months. As a result, we now have a more stable supply of products. We've also augmented our supply with the introduction of new, and in the case of Zydra and Blink, acquired products. These offerings address some of the most glaring needs in eye health, demonstrate our commitment to innovation, and position us for sustained growth and category leadership. Our reinvention is resonating with our most important audience, the eye care professionals who use, prescribe, and recommend our products. On my listening and learning tour one year ago, supply concerns and lack of awareness around our priorities often came to the forefront. My experience at the recent American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Annual Meeting was the exact opposite. In nearly every interaction, customers shared an appreciation of our efforts to predictably deliver the products and services they've come to rely on and recognized our increasingly important role in bringing new solutions to market. Their excitement about what the future holds for Bausch & Lomb was clear. I'll give a brief overview of the financials before Sam gets into specifics. Our 20% constant currency revenue growth is shown here, which, as previously noted, was driven by our holistic strength. That's reflected in our business segment performance, with 8% constant currency revenue growth for surgical, 11% for vision care, and 66% for pharmaceuticals. Absence of our revenue, pharmaceuticals still showed impressive organic revenue growth on a year-over-year basis at 18%. Our key franchises continue to outperform and drive home the holistic theme given the spread across business units. Infused one-day lenses are increasingly a preferred option for optometrists, and our Vista family of IOLs had surgeons excited for expansion in that category. Brands that have demonstrated consistent growth in areas of ongoing opportunity, most notably Lumify and Prezavision, are high margin performers that bolster the top and bottom line. Now let me turn it over to Sam.