Ari Bousbib
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at IQVIA
Thank you, Nick and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining today to discuss our first quarter results. IQVIA has very strong financial results in the quarter and that is despite the broader macro environment. On this note, regarding first the tragic situation in the Ukraine, our thoughts and concerns from the beginning has been around the safety and well-being of our employees, the patients we support and all those affected by the ongoing events. We've been actively supporting our employees and their families on the ground with evacuation support, relocation services and financial assistance. For example, we accelerated bonus payments and actually we continue to pay our employees there, regardless of their ability to perform any work.
In addition, IQVIA capabilities are being utilized to help support the resulting refugee crisis. For example, Ukrainian refugees are entering surrounding countries with medicines and prescriptions and medical professionals in those countries are seeking to identify and convert product information on these prescriptions into their local equivalent. To help, we've established a free online service for medical professionals to search a product name, active ingredients, and strength, and the tool generates a list of matching products in whichever the local country around the Ukraine is.
Also, we've been working very closely with our customers, suppliers and clinical sites across the region to ensure continuity of our in-flight clinical trials and ensure of course that our clients are able to continue to support the effective delivery of medicines to vulnerable patients in the region who depend on these medicines. In Ukraine we are providing support to ensure that trial patients who have begun receiving treatment remain on their treatment protocols. We have established direct to patient shipments of investigational medical products and patient call centers in order to ensure patient care can continue.
In Russia, we are guided by ethical concerns to ensure the safety of patients already enrolled in clinical trials. We are utilizing our global logistics and procurement infrastructure to facilitate the movement of investigational medical products, lab kits, and samples into and out of the country to minimize potential adverse impacts to patient care. For studies that are in startup or early phase, in both countries, we are redirecting patient recruitment to other countries based on consultations with our customers. Even though a little less than 1% of our overall revenue and approximately 3% of our global patient recruitment come from the Ukraine and Russia, the operational disruptions I just described, will have some financial impact which we have incorporated into our updated guidance.
Now, another key focus area for investors in the quarter, as you will know, has been the emerging biopharma funding environment. We received a number of questions on this topic since our earnings release in February and we have addressed those in multiple forums. However, there have been some lingering questions on the same topic and I want to take this opportunity once again to reiterate our comments with a specific focus, a) on the funding environment and b) on our own company's exposure to this EBP segment.
I'll start by stating that the concern about EBP funding environment is overstated. I want to support the assertion with four key points. Number one, the industry has observed a slowdown in public funding compared to the record levels in 2020 and 2021, but the private venture capital markets have continued to be strong and funding in the first quarter of 2022 was the third highest ever according to the National Venture Capital Association. I will also observe that these EBP firms are seeking large amounts of cash from the very strong funding cycles in 2020 and 2021.
Number two, when there is a reduction in EBP funding or the IPO market contracts, mid and large pharma companies often step up their acquisition activities of EBP companies and frankly, that benefits us as we have long-standing relationships with these customers. In fact, you may have seen the recent acquisition of Checkmate Pharmaceuticals by Regeneron, which illustrates this very point.
Number three, history tells us that when EBP funding slows, it does not have a significant effect on our business. For example, following the last EBP funding slowdown in 2015, 2016, our IQVIA biotech unit saw no interruption in net new business and revenue growth, nor any unusual increase in cancellations.
And finally, number four, when we look at either our pipeline or RFP activity, we have simply not seen any slowdown, no unusual cancellation activity, no unusual delays in decision making. In fact, in the quarter our overall R&DS RFP dollars were up 13% year-over-year, and RFP dollars from EBP were up over 16%. The broader industry continues to show strength. We're seeing clinical trials start up 7% in the first quarter compared to last year, with a 14% increase in oncology trial starts, which is a therapeutic area, as you well know, that's predominantly sponsored by EBP.
Now, let me focus on our own exposure to the same, specifically three commercial EBPs, which are those EBPs that have zero revenue, and are the most vulnerable and exposed to the funding environment. And here I want to make another four points. Number one, as of March 31, pre-commercial EBPs represented just over 10% of our total R&DS backlog. Number two, less than 7% of our overall RFP dollars in the quarter came from pre-commercial EBP.
Number three, this exposure to pre-commercial EBP for IQVIA is not only minimal, but also I want to point out and underline that our vetting process for taking on a pre-commercial EBP is extremely rigorous and thorough. The process includes, for example, a review of the clients cash balances, payment history, viability and quality of their science, and of course progress with clinical developments. So, again, said differently, not every EBP who knocks at our door with a molecule that they think is interesting, makes it into our battle.
Number four, I will simply remind you that this exposure primarily impacts our R&DS segment. Approximately 45% of IQVIA's total company revenue comes from our commercial businesses. And as you know, there is virtually zero pre-commercial exposure on the commercial side.
With those kind of a background, let me now delve into the first quarter results. Revenue for the first quarter grew 4.7% on a reported basis and 6.8% at constant currency. The $23 million beat above the midpoint of our guidance range was driven by strong operational performance across all three segments. And that was of course partially offset by foreign exchange headwinds.
Compared to prior year and excluding COVID related work for both years, our core businesses grew about 13% at constant currency on an organic basis. Ron will provide additional detail in his remarks, including COVID adjusted numbers for each of our three segments.
First quarter adjusted EBITDA grew 9.1% reflecting our revenue growth, as well as ongoing productivity initiatives. First quarter adjusted diluted EPS of $2.47 grew 13.3%, that was 4% above the midpoint of our guide, which is with about $0.03 of the beat coming from operational improvements.
I'll now provide an update on the business and let's start with the commercial and technology side. We've spoken before and you're familiar with IQVIA's connected intelligence framework, which leverages our advanced analytics technology and domain expertise across the entire clinical and commercial portfolio and has been critical in supporting the emerging needs of the pharma industry. I want to give a recent example of how these capabilities are being deployed.
In the quarter we entered into a multiyear agreement with Argenx for the development and commercialization of new indications for their rare disease product currently approved for treatments of a rare autoimmune disorder affecting the muscles. Our collaboration with Argenx incorporates IQVIA's Connected Intelligence to support clinical development, real world evidence, regulatory and commercial support to accelerate the development of this product for potential treatment of other severe autoimmune diseases and to expand globally. This is an exciting product with a lot of upside potential. It's currently approved for three -- six indications, has the potential for up to 15 indications. Plus this drug has already been launched in the U.S. and has plans to launch in Europe and in Japan in the next year.
Another example of a client selecting IQVIA's integrated capabilities to solve complex problems is [indecipherable] European pharma client recently selected IQVIA's Vigilance Platform and Regulatory Information Management Technology. This is an area that's a real headache for our clients. And our technology solutions simplify and streamline our processes. [Indecipherable] will benefit from our technology's integrated AI ML capabilities, automation of labor-heavy activities, and easy implementation. To date, over 150 clients have adopted one or more solutions within our safety, regulatory and four different suites of technologies.
In the real world evidence, I'm sure you've seen that we were selected to support DARWIN, or Data Analysis and Real World Interrogation Network. DARWIN is a strategic initiative of the EMA. This is a major win for IQVIA as it draws on our proprietary technologies, methods and deep scientific and operational expertise. It will help us deepen our relationship with healthcare providers and sites across Europe.
Moving to Clinical Technology, IQVIA continues to lead the industry in decentralized clinical trials. Our end-to-end solution of integrated technology and services capabilities are being utilized on just over one third of our full service trials globally. Today, we've recruited over 300,000 patients across 80 countries, covering over 30 indications.
Now, whether for traditional or decentralized trials, demand for our suite of digital clinical technology offerings continued to increase during the first quarter. To date, over 400 clients have adopted one or more modules within our Orchestrated Clinical Technology suite since launch. One of these key modules for example, is our clinical trial payments solution. This technology ensures accurate, timely and transparent investigator payment processing. It is a key driver of both site and sponsors satisfaction.
Four of the top 10 and 25 of the top 30 pharma clients have now selected IQVIA's payment technology solution for their trials. This includes a major award in the quarter with a top 10 sponsor to migrate their entire payment ecosystem across several legacy platforms to our technology. The scale of this technology migration is the largest of its kind in the industry and it encompasses 120 clinical studies across all phases, with over 6000 sites globally.
Beyond these client highlights, our overall R&DS businesses continued to see strong momentum in the quarter, delivering over $2.5 billion of net new business, including pass-throughs. This included a record quarter of over $1.9 billion of services bookings, resulting in the first quarter of contracted net book-to-bill ratio of 1.32, excluding pass-throughs and 1.31 including pass-throughs. Over the last 12 months our contracted net book-to-bill ratio was 1.33 excluding pass-throughs and 1.32 including pass-throughs.
Our contracted backlog in R&DS grew 9.1% year-over-year to a record $25.3 billion as of March 31, 2022. As a result, our next 12 months revenue from backlog increased to over $7 billion growing 8% from a year ago. As you can see there is a lot of strong positive momentum across the business, regardless of the choppy macro environment.
On a final note, IQVIA was named the top CRO in overall reputation by clinical trial sites around the world in the 2021 CenterWatch's Global Site Benchmark Survey. This is a big deal for us. This is a rigorous and independent survey, that is highly respected in the industry. Over 60,000 investigators, trial coordinators, research nurses, and other clinical professionals representing clinical trial sites from around the world were asked to rank and score 29 CROs across 35 performance related attributes. We are proud to have been selected and named the top CRO in overall reputation and specifically, we received high marks, especially high marks for our comprehensive decentralized trials, direct to patient recruitment, and therapeutic clinical regulatory and technology expertise.
I will now turn it over to Ron for more details on our financial performance. Ron?
