Steve Collis
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Cencora
Thank you, Bennett. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Before we discuss our results for the quarter, I want to provide a brief update on opioid-related litigation. As previously disclosed on April 2, the comprehensive settlement agreement to settle a substantial majority of opioid lawsuits filed by state and local governmental entities became effective. 46 of 49 eligible states as one of the district of Colombia and all the eligible territories as well as over 98% of eligible subdivisions in the states agreed to participate in the settlement.
Additionally, we have reached an agreement for a settlement with the state of Washington that is consistent with the state's allocations under the comprehensive settlement agreement. That brings the total number of states settling opioid-related claims to 47 or 49 eligible states. We are encouraged by this progress and we look forward to providing further updates as they become available.
Turning now to our second quarter of fiscal 2022. I am excited to discuss our results and the continued progress we are making on our strategic imperatives. During the quarter, revenue was up 17% over the prior year to $58 billion. Adjusted operating income increased by 30% and adjusted EPS grew by 27%. Our exceptional results reflect continuous positive momentum across our business as we delivered high levels of execution and capitalize on the strength of our differentiated value proposition, including our broad set of leading capabilities, deep customer relationships innovative manufacturer solutions and expanded global footprint.
In the US, our leadership in specialty continues to differentiate our own best distribution capabilities, portfolio of preeminent customers and integration of innovative solutions allows us to serve both manufacturers and providers, meeting the unique needs while providing a vital connection to help improve patient outcomes and access.
To beneficiate manufacturers and providers, we recently launched an enhanced digital dashboard offering, a new world-class three-way digital portal that streamlined core specialty GPO processes, improved data accuracy and availability and enhances transparency.
With real-time data at their fingertips, manufacturers gain visibility into market trends, and providers are better able to streamline their operations. This is yet another example of how our teams are embracing their intellectual confidence and leveraging our data and analytics capabilities to move the industry forward, building upon our strong legacy upgrade solutions and services that meet the unique needs of our partners.
In addition to our continued efforts to enhance our solutions portfolio, our manufacturer services teams have been realigned to streamline our contracting and engagement with biopharmaceutical manufacturers with the goal of forming broader and more robust relationships.
With our ability to offer a full suite of market-leading capabilities from market access and distribution to patient access and adherence, we are uniquely positioned to be a key partner for biopharmaceutical manufacturers and providers. Our prominence and market presence have uniquely positioned AmerisourceBegen to leverage our platform and capabilities to support the global response to the pandemic, and we are proud to have played a simple role in supporting pandemic efforts globally.
Our contributions have included providing specialized logistics services, facilitating access to testing and distributing millions of doses of vaccines in over 30 countries across four continents. In the US, we have worked with government and manufacturer partners to distribute COVID-19 antibody and antiviral therapies, including the oral COVID treatments. We have also supported services that pharmacies have provided to their communities throughout the pandemic, including education, testing and vaccinations.
In fact, our Good Neighbor Pharmacy network recently allocated its five million COVID-19 dose as part of the Federal Retail pharmacy program for COVID-19 vaccination. Since February of 2021, Good Neighbor Pharmacy has helped more than 1,600 independent community pharmacies in 45 states, Puerto Rico and Guam to participate in this federal program. We actively support continued patient access to care provided by pharmacies, including pandemic related services that have helped to keep communities safe and advocate for expanded provider status to keep communities healthy over the long-term.
Increasingly important providers of family and community care are those who care for our pets. In our Animal Health business, we are similarly building on our relationship with veterinarians to help them access the pharmaceuticals, health care products and suppliers, they need to serve their patients. We work side-by-side with veterinary practices to automate and streamline processes to improve their efficiency, enabling them to maximize time spent with patients and improve outcomes. Our MWI Easy Care program, for example, helps veterinary practices improve access and adherence to their patients' preventative care plans while introducing automation to remove the burden of administrative and marketing processes.
By offering standard-setting technology solutions in both the companion animal and production animal health markets, such as inventory management, life beating technology and enhanced tracking capabilities, we are uniquely able to capture the growth opportunities ahead as the human-pet connection continues to strengthen and as the global demand for protein continues to grow.
Turning to our International business segment. We delivered another quarter of growth as we maintained our strong momentum. Our best-in-class global specialty logistics services business remain focused on supporting manufacturers with global clinical trials and on ensuring temperature-sensitive shipments arrived on time and at the right temperature.
Our specialty supply chain services team supported partners across the healthcare landscape by providing end-to-end transport solutions that enhance supply chain efficiently and allow customers to focus on bringing life-changing treatments to patients around the world.
Our team at Alliance Healthcare provided high levels of execution and leverage their local expertise to further deepen customer relationships, provide innovative solutions to customers and partners and support the global pharmaceutical supply chain to improve patient access and outcomes.
As we continue to work to integrate systems and teams, we expect to find more opportunities to work together and capitalize on the full power of our combined platform to provide value-added solutions to stakeholders and capture the substantial growth opportunities we see ahead.
As we move into the second half of 2022, we remain focused on carrying this momentum forward and building on our core strength by advancing our strategic imperatives of leading with market leaders, leveraging our infrastructure to increase efficiency access and the customer experience, investing in innovation to further drive our differentiation, expanding on our leadership in specialty and contributing to healthier outcomes around the world
Our global base of key anchor customers and our strategic partnership model allows us to integrate ourselves into our customers' operations and deepen our relationship with market leaders across the healthcare supply chain. With our portfolio of innovative solutions, extensive industry knowledge, world-class teams and a forward-thinking innovative mindset, we are able to form long-term relationships as we help our customers navigate the healthcare challenges of today and anticipate the opportunities of tomorrow.
Our strong customer relationships are supported by expansive and market-leading infrastructure, which helps us facilitate patient access wherever a prescription is needed and to improve efficiency across the pharmaceutical supply chain. Since the onset of COVID, we have demonstrated the value of our different operating model and our vital role connecting key stakeholders across the healthcare system. From supporting government preparedness for current and future potential pharmaceutical needs to ensuring health equity and vaccine access globally, I remain inspired by the way our team members have adapted, collaborated and innovative to support patient needs.
Innovation remains an important element in our ability to respond to the rapidly changing health care environment and to support the advancement of our customers' businesses. In keeping with our commitment to innovation, we recently established a venture capital fund through, which we will support old ideas globally in areas such as the future of pharmacy and distribution, clinical development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals and practice solutions for health care providers and veterinarians.
We are excited to formalize the process of leveraging our deep expertise and broad networks of relationships to support forward-thinking companies as they identify innovative solutions that can benefit AmerisourceBegen partners and the patients they serve. The venture capital fund is another example of our continued efforts to enhance and grow our platforms across health care channels. Sometimes that conduit is best served by partnering with smaller entrepreneurial companies to help them reach their full potential.
Importantly, our venture capital fund will invest in companies that amplified innovation themes I have been discussing today. Pharmaceutical innovation is advancing at an exceptionally rapid pace, particularly in the specialty and sell and deed market, where we continue to differentiate ourselves as the market leader.
During the quarter, we, along with our partner, TrakCel, the leading innovator of cellular orchestration solutions unveiled an integrated technology platform designed to accelerate patient access to prescribe cell and gene therapies and to deliver complete visibility throughout the treatment journey.
The platform increases connectivity between the sub-patient services and providers, resulting in a seamless and timely exchange of benefits and eligibility information that expedites patient enrollment and support, ultimately, helping patients start on therapy sooner. This partnership is an example of how we are leveraging the full breadth of our strength in specialty to create innovative solutions for patient access to promising new therapies.
By offering differentiated solutions for pharmaceutical innovators, we further our position as a key pillar supporting global pharmaceutical innovation. As a global health care solutions leader, we leverage our expanded footprint, our expertise in all phases of pharmaceutical development and our investments across the pharmaceutical supply chain to contribute to positive pharmaceutical driven outcome.
This work is caused our purpose and who we are as a company. As an organization, we are 42,000 purpose-driven team members, uniting our responsibility to create healthier futures. Our team members perform inspiring work every day, and we are focused on supporting the continued growth and development within AmerisourceBegen.
We know that to empower our team, we must operate with transparency and greater culture that values diversity, inclusivity and belonging. Our recent disclosures reflect our focus on transparency. We provide enhanced human capital disclosures in our most recent 10-K, and we have separately disclosed our EEO-1 report. In our most recent global sustainability report, we disclosed our gender pay debt in the United States, which revealed that for every dollar made employees are paid, female employees in AmerisourceBergen are paid $0.994, we are proud of this statistic that demonstrate what we believe are by our culture and the way we respect and value our team members is being validated by more extensive data insights.
As a further reflection on both my personal dedication and AmerisourceBegen's united commitment to advancing equal gender rights and opportunities, I was honored to sign the CEO statement of support for the United States Nations Women's Empowerment Principles in March. We believe management and our Board's commitment to diverse exclusive and equitable culture is working and look forward to continuing to share our progress on our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
One of the ways we have identified to further our progress is in assisting credible efforts to improve health equity in our communities. For example, the AmerisourceBergen Foundation has been a long-standing partner to the National Association of School Nurses to optimize student health and learning by advancing the practices of school nursing. Recently, we expanded upon our support for education by sponsoring a supply chain elective course at Xavier University of Louisiana's College of Pharmacy, a top-ranked historically black University and a top educator of black pharmacists in the country.
By investing in tomorrow's diverse healthcare leaders, we are making a meaningful impact in promoting inclusivity and equity in our communities. We invite you to visit our Global Sustainability microsite and ESG Reporting Index to view the data, strategies and stories, representative of our diverse and inclusion journey.
As a purpose-driven global organization, we are also closely tracking global events and their impact on the communities where we live and work. The conflict in Ukraine is a solely continuation of the challenges of the past few years, and I think their view of our colleagues who are based there.
Teams within our business in our global business resilience organization are in active communication to do everything possible to ensure the safety of our colleagues on the ground in Ukraine. Our associated systems fund, which supports team members facing financial hardship due to events outside their control, has provided financial assistance to the Ukraine-based team members as well as team members around the world while supporting immediate families in the conflict zone.
Team members from 29 countries and counting are stepping up to provide financial support to help address the humanitarian crisis in and around Ukraine through our matching gift program. Additionally, the AmerisourceBegen Foundation has provided financial donations and our business globally is providing product donations to support both human and animal health in the region. We join organizations from around the world in our hope for a timely and peaceful end to the conflict. At the same time, I find strength and confidence and the fact that our organization has never been better positioned to positively impact our communities and that we are living our purpose.
As we continue to be united in our responsibility to create healthier futures, we are building on our strong momentum across our business and delivering on our strategic priorities to further strengthen our relationship with our customers, advanced global pharmaceutical innovation and enhance our differentiated value proposition.
I'm thankful and grateful for the commitment and performance of our 42,000 purpose-driven team members who helped our partners and customers navigate the increasingly complex and evolving global health care landscape. AmerisourceBergen is a global health care solutions leader that is focused and executing to advance pharmaceutical innovation and access to create a positive impact on the health of people and communities around the world. We move into the second half of our fiscal work with significant momentum and are well-positioned to continue creating significant long-term value for our shareholders.
Now, I will turn the call over to Jim for a quarter 2022 results and to discuss our updated financial guidance. Jim?
