John H. Hammergren
Analyst · Credit Suisse
Thanks, Ana, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on our call. I'm pleased with the continued momentum in our business. For our second quarter, we achieved total company revenues of $30.2 billion and adjusted earnings per diluted share of $1.63. This performance is a result of strong contributions from both Technology Solutions and Distribution Solutions and was helped by our acquisition of US Oncology. Based on the momentum from our first half results, we are now raising our previous outlook for the fiscal year and now expect adjusted earnings between $6.19 and $6.39 per diluted share for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Before I turn the call over to Jeff for a detailed review of our financial results, I will provide some highlights from both segments of our business. In Distribution Solutions, we were particularly pleased to see steady demand across all of our pharmaceutical and Medical-Surgical distribution businesses. We know that there are concerns in the industry about utilization trends, but we've seen healthy demand in our diverse set of distribution businesses. In addition to strong revenue growth, Distribution Solutions' operating margins expanded 19 basis points with U.S. Pharmaceutical, Canada, Medical-Surgical and Specialty Health all contributing to that outstanding performance. Our U.S. Pharmaceutical Distribution business continues to perform in an exceptionally high level. Again this quarter, the U.S. Pharmaceutical team did a great job controlling costs, resulting in a relatively flat expense for the quarter, which contributed nicely to the segment's operating margin expansion. We continue to benefit from our long-standing relationships with branded manufacturers, delivering great value to them and earning steady levels of compensation in return. Overall, U.S. Pharmaceutical is right on target for the year. I'm extremely pleased with the results of our Specialty Health business, which includes the operations of US Oncology. We began this year with a set of priorities focusing on integrating the 2 companies and creating an expanded customer base and an expanded value proposition to these important customers that brings together all of our assets of both businesses. Thus far, we made great progress combining the 2 organizations, and the majority of the integration work is now complete and we are realizing synergies from the transaction. We're also creating real momentum in the marketplace. At the end of the second quarter, our Specialty business launched a new name and offering to the marketplace, reflecting the expanded business unit created by merging McKesson Specialty Care Solutions and US Oncology. Now called the McKesson Specialty Health, the business empowers providers, from hospitals to community oncologists to other multi-specialty providers, to advance the science, technology and quality of care through innovative clinical, research, business and operational solutions. Our customers are responding very positively to our new, broader offering. While we've expanded our value proposition considerably, I would note that generics continue to play an important role in Specialty's performance. We've had strong results year-to-date, and we expect the trend to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year. Our Medical-Surgical revenues grew 13% in the second quarter, partially due to 5 extra days of sales but also as a result of very steady market growth in the physician office and long-term care segments and above-market growth in the home care segment for McKesson. This year, we saw slightly earlier sales of flu vaccine as well. We remain focused on delivering value to our Medical-Surgical customers by optimizing our sourcing of the McKesson brand where we deliver high-quality private label products at great savings. In addition, we continue to drive leverage through aggressive cost management. The team in our Canadian Distribution business has done an outstanding job of working to offset public policy-related price reductions on generic drugs. Solid top line growth, a continued focus on expense control measures and global sourcing of McKesson products led to a good performance for the quarter. Clearly, the environment in Canada has been challenging for retail pharmacies over the past year and, in particular, for independent pharmacies. McKesson Canada has a long history of supporting independent pharmacies through our banner offering and our retail automation solutions and, of course, our broad Specialty offering. We've built a strong brand in Canada with leading physicians in every market segment and close customer relationships. This continues to be a terrific business for us. Our comprehensive set of both distribution and technology solutions for customers clearly differentiates McKesson, and our goal is to continue to grow in Canada. To sum up Distribution Solutions, in Distribution solutions we had a strong second quarter performance resulting from our terrific combination of assets and a seasoned leadership team that continues to perform exceptionally well. I have great confidence in our full year performance. Turning now to Technology Solutions. I'm pleased with our performance across the segment. All of the businesses that make up Technology Solutions performed well this quarter, resulting in strong revenue growth and operating margin expansion. As we look across our portfolio of technology businesses, we see steady demand resulting from a number of factors, including the government's focus on broad adoption of Electronic Health Record Solutions, the transaction-based nature of certain of our businesses such as RelayHealth and the increasing demand for solutions that help payers manage financial, administrative and clinical processes, all while improving quality. This quarter, in our Provider Technology (sic) [Technologies] business, we made solid progress with implementations at both our Horizon and Paragon systems with several customers successfully attesting [ph] for Meaningful Use in both product sets. We also had good expense control, which helped drive financial performance beyond what we experienced 90 days ago. With the publication of the final rule for Medicare Shared Savings Program, sometimes referred to as accountable care regulation, we expect to see continued activity where providers are seeking to defend or grow market share in their area. With the revision of several major components of the regulation, we believe this will accelerate demand for our unique solutions. To address the various approaches customers are taking, we recommend and offer solutions to our customers that include connectivity and patient engagement, analytics, care management and payment mechanics. McKesson's accountable care solution bundle combines RelayHealth Connectivity assets with the care and population management assets in our payer business, McKesson Health Solutions. These solutions can be combined with Horizon, Paragon and enterprise intelligence to help providers preserve and extend existing investments while managing to a strategic organizational structure that fits their needs. We believe our comprehensive set of solutions for hospitals, payers, pharmacies, physicians and patients is a strong differentiator for us. Both our payer-facing Health Solutions business and our RelayHealth Connectivity business showed steady results year-over-year in the September quarter. As a reminder, these 2 businesses account for over half of the profits in Technology Solutions, and a number of these solutions require little capital investment by the customer. Therefore, they are very steady growth businesses that have continued to demonstrate considerable stability during the past 2 years of economic uncertainty. In our Health Solutions business, we learned this quarter that CMS will use McKesson's InterQual criteria for the 12th consecutive year to support Medicare initiatives. The long-standing nature of this relationship is a good example of the value that our solutions bring to our partners year-after-year. In our RelayHealth business, we focus on one thing, connectivity, so consumers and health care organizations can securely exchange information. This focus reflects our belief that a streamlined exchange of information is better for everyone touched by the nation's health care system. In the quarter, RelayHealth was awarded multiple contracts to support the Department of Defense and the military health system's strategic goals for a more patient-centric medical home model of care. RelayHealth will provide a full suite of secure online services to connect patients who are active-duty military, retirees, spouses and dependents with their health care providers and the care team, to a secure messaging platform and integrated personal health record. This capability provides the Department of Defense with the unique ability to deliver more advanced, patient-centric care directly and the ability to extend this connectivity out to the community providers, enabling an exceptional connectivity platform to improve patient-centric care across the country. In summary, we're off to a good start to fiscal 2012. In addition to solid operating performance, our strong balance sheet and steady cash flow provide us with opportunities to deploy capital. And in the second quarter, we completed our $650 million accelerated share repurchase program. We target a portfolio approach to capital deployment, which should also include acquisitions. You should feel confident that we intend to continue deploying our capital wisely and strategically. I believe we're well positioned for continued success. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff and return to address your questions when he finishes. Jeff?