Bausch + Lomb Corporation (NYSE:BLCO) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 21, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Brent Saunders - Chairman & CEO

Sam Eldessouky - EVP & CFO

George Gadkowski - VP, IR & Business Insights

Conference Call Participants

Matt Miksic - Barclays

Patrick Wood - Morgan Stanley

Craig Bijou - Bank of America

Larry Biegelsen - Wells Fargo

Robbie Marcus - J.P. Morgan

Vijay Kumar - Evercore ISI

Joanne Wuensch - Citibank

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Bausch + Lomb’s Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2023 Earnings Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to George Gadkowski, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Insights. Please go ahead.

George Gadkowski

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 Eldessouky. In addition to the 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. 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.

Brent Saunders

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 Miebo and Xiidra sales force 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 gamechangers.