Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call April 25, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Peter Dannenbaum - SVP, IR
Rob Davis - Chairman and CEO
Caroline Litchfield - CFO
Dean Li - President of Merck Research Labs

Conference Call Participants

Terence Flynn - Morgan Stanley
Evan Seigerman - BMO Capital Markets
Chris Shibutani - Goldman Sachs
Dana Graybosch - Leerink Partners
James Shin - Deutsche Bank
Umer Raffat - Evercore
Tim Anderson - Wolfe Research
Louise Chen - Cantor Fitzgerald
Trung Huynh - UBS
Carter Gould - Barclays
Chris Schott - JPMorgan
Luisa Hector - Berenberg
Seamus Fernandez - Guggenheim

Operator

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Merck & Co. Q1 Sales and Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Peter Dannenbaum, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Peter Dannenbaum

Thank you, Sherley. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to Merck's first quarter 2024 conference call. Speaking on today's call will be Rob Davis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Caroline Litchfield, Chief Financial Officer; and Dr. Dean Li, President of Merck Research Labs. Before we get started, I'd like to point out a few items. You will see that we have items in our GAAP results, such as acquisition related charges, restructuring costs and certain other items. You should note that we have excluded these from our non-GAAP results and provide a reconciliation in our press release. I would like to remind you that some of the statements that we make today maybe considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are made based on the current beliefs of Merck's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. If our underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Our SEC filings, including Item 1A in the 2023 10-K identify certain risk factors and cautionary statements that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any of our forward-looking statements made this morning. Merck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. During today's call, a slide presentation will accompany our speakers' prepared remarks. These slides, along with our earnings release, today's prepared remarks and our SEC filings, are all posted to the Investor Relations section of Merck's Web site. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rob.