Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 24, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Mike Comilla - Vice President, Investor Relations

Robert Ford - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Philip Boudreau - Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo

Joshua Jennings - TD Cowen

Marie Thibault - BTIG

Robbie Marcus - JPMorgan

Danielle Antalffy - UBS

Joanne Wuensch - Citibank

Vijay Kumar - Evercore ISI

Travis Steed - Bank of America Securities

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Abbott's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be able to listen only until the question-and-answer portion of this call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded by Abbott. With the exception of any participants questions asked during the question-and-answer session, the entire call including the question-and-answer session is material copyrighted by Abbott. It cannot be recorded or reproduced broadcast without Abbott's expressed written permission.

I would now like to introduce Mr. Mike Comilla, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Mike Comilla

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Robert Ford, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Bob Funck, Executive Vice President, Finance; and Phil Boudreau, Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Robert and Phil will provide opening remarks. Following their comments, we'll take your questions.

Before we get started, some statements made today may be forward-looking for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the expected financial results for 2024. Abbott cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Economic, competitive, governmental, technological, and other factors that may affect Abbott's operations are discussed in Item 1A, Risk Factors, to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. Abbott undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except as required by law.

On today's conference call, as in the past, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Abbott's ongoing business performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled with the comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings news release and regulatory filings from today, which are available on our website at abbott.com. Note, that Abbott has not provided the GAAP financial measure for organic sales growth on a forward-looking basis because the Company is unable to predict future changes in foreign exchange rates, which could impact reported sales growth. Unless otherwise noted, our commentary on sales growth refers to organic sales growth, which is defined in the press release issued earlier today.