Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today is Franco Stevanato, Executive Chairman; Franco Moro, Chief Executive Officer; and Marco Dal Lago, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that a number of statements being made today will be forward-looking in nature. Please remember that such statements are only predictions. Actual events and results may differ materially as a result of risks we face, including those discussed in Item 3D entitled Risk Factors in the company's annual report on Form 20-F/A for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 filed with the SEC. We encourage you to review the information contained in our earnings release today in conjunction with our associated SEC filings and our latest Form 20-F/A. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law. Today's presentation may contain non-GAAP financial information. Management uses this information in its internal analysis of results and believes this information may be informative to investors in gauging the quality of our financial performance, identifying trends in our results and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons. For a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures presented in this document, please see the company's most recent earnings press release. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Franco Stevanato for opening remarks.

Thank you, Lisa. We are pleased to post another quarter of strong financial results as we foster a track record of consistent performance. Our management team is executing against our multiyear strategic plan to drive sustainable organic growth and increased adoption of high-value solutions as we aim to expand EBITDA margin over the long term. We are building upon an already solid foundation guided by our philosophy that the customer and patient are at the heart of everything we do. Our focus on science and technology, together with our history of pioneering new trends to enhance the integrity of medicine, has helped us become one of the global leaders in integrated capability in the primary packaging space. In fact, Sanofi, one of our top customer partners, recently nominated Stevanato Group to its distinguished 2022 Supplier Hall of Fame in recognition of our collaborative mindset. Stevanato Group was the only glass supplier included on the list. Our inclusion speaks to the value we bring to our customers and our team's commitment to advancing pharmaceutical innovation to help improve people's lives every day. Lastly, I'm proud to announce that the Board has recommended the approval of a cash dividend of $13.5 million, subject to shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting on June 1. On behalf of the entire Board, this proposal affirms our confidence in management, the strength of the underlying fundamentals of the business, and the favorable multiyear secular trend and robust demand that we see in the market. I will now hand the call to Franco Moro and Marco Dal Lago to discuss this quarter's results.

Thank you, Franco. Starting on Slide 7. Our solid first quarter performance gives us good momentum, and this keeps us on track to achieve our full-year guidance. For the first quarter of 2022, we delivered double-digit revenue growth, grew high-value solutions, and increased order intake compared to last year. Our mix of high-value solutions increased to 29% of total revenue for the first quarter. We remain on course to hit our target mix by 2026, which is our revenue from high-value solutions in the mid-30% range. Favorable demand trends continue to underpin the steady flow of incoming orders. For the first quarter of 2022, new order intake increased 29% to approximately €324 million, which led to a committed backlog of approximately €992 million, up from €665 million last year. As illustrated on Slide 8, we started fiscal year 2022 on solid footing. We are executing our strategic and operational priorities to drive sustainable growth and expand EBITDA margin. Under the main pillars of our plan, our efforts are squarely concentrated on: advancing the build-out of our new EZ-fill regional hubs in the U.S. and China; and adding incremental capacity in Italy. This broadens our production footprint, increases capacity in premium products, and anchors operations in these strategic markets. Growing the mix of high-value solutions and rapidly responding to customer demand for premium containment and ready-to-use platforms. The adoption of high-value solutions is driven by customers' needs to match more complex and sensitive treatments like biologics, monoclonal antibodies, and mRNA applications with the right containment solution. Our ready-to-use format reduces a customer's total cost of ownership while offering greater flexibility and higher quality. Driving innovation through investments in our research and development. Our R&D efforts are focused on premium primary final packaging and drug delivery systems to accelerate our market-leading position, strengthen our IP, and develop new technologies to advance patient care. Building a multiyear pipeline of new opportunities as emerging therapies create a growing demand for high-performance products like Nexa and Alba. In addition, as patient care advances beyond the laboratory to a point-of-care model, we are developing opportunities to increase our presence in drug delivery systems. Moving on to Slide 9, we announced an exclusive partnership agreement with Owen Mumford, a global leader specializing in the design, development, and manufacture of auto-injectors. The auto-injector space is one of the fastest-growing markets within drug delivery systems, with strong demand driven by increasing self-administration trends and new biosimilars entering. The new agreement supports the Aidaptus auto-injector, a next-generation platform that is compatible with glass pre-fillable syringes and accommodates a range of fill volumes designed to deliver subcutaneous injections with a patient-centric design. The partnership underscores the power of our integrated solutions across both segments. We are the exclusive manufacturing and engineering partner for Owen Mumford, and we will supply sub-assembly and final assembly equipment to customers. Customers have the option to use a range of our EZ-fill glass syringes as part of a completely integrated auto-injector solution. We will market the Aidaptus auto-injector directly to customers, supporting their combinations of product programs. We also announced the expansion of our agreement with Bexson to more therapeutic areas beyond pain management. Bexson is using a customized version of our patient-friendly wearable SG EZ-be Pod, for the advancement of new therapeutics to treat a wide range of mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression and PTSD. These agreements follow on the heels of our expanded agreement with Haselmeier for the Alina Pen injector. Collectively, these efforts mark another key step in broadening our integrated capabilities, diversifying our portfolio, and growing our presence in the drug delivery space of pen injectors, auto-injectors, and wearable pods.

Thanks, Franco. Starting on Slide 13, we are pleased with the overall performance in the quarter, and financial results came in largely as expected. Revenue for the first quarter of 2022 grew 10%, or 8% on a constant currency basis, to €212.1 million driven by growth in both of our segments. I want to point out that the first quarter last year included a €5.5 million revenue benefit in our BDS segment from a licensing agreement, all of which dropped to the bottom line and boosted margin, net profit, and earnings in the first quarter of 2021. Excluding the favorable impact of currency translation and the €5.5 million revenue benefit, year-over-year revenue growth would have been approximately 12%. For the first quarter of 2022, revenue related to COVID represented approximately 10% of revenue compared to 14% for the same period last year. Excluding COVID, revenue from the base business grew 14% in the first quarter compared to last year. As Franco noted, the mix of high-value solutions increased to 29% of revenue in the first quarter, up from 23% last year. Gross profit margin in the first quarter of 2022 was 31.8% and benefited from a higher mix of high-value solutions, which was offset by a temporary slowdown in production due to higher absenteeism during the months of January and February related to COVID-19, and to a lesser extent, inflationary costs. While we have been successful in recovering the majority of our cost increases, the steep rise in natural gas tempered margins, which we expect to recover in future periods through price adjustments. For the first quarter, operating profit margin was 17.9% and 18.3% on an adjusted basis. Operating profit margin reflects higher operational expenses in R&D as we boost our efforts in this area, as well as increased G&A mostly related to public company costs. This resulted in a net profit of €27.8 million or €0.10 of diluted earnings per share. As expected, the number of weighted average shares outstanding were higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared to Q1 last year. Adjusted net profit was €28.6 million and adjusted diluted EPS were €0.11. For the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA was €54 million and adjusted EBITDA margin was 25.5%. Please turn to Slide 14 for segment results. For the first quarter, BDS segment revenue increased 7%, or 5% on a constant currency basis over last year to €172.4 million. As a reminder, the prior year period included a €5.5 million benefit from the licensing agreement. Revenue growth for the BDS segment in the first quarter was driven by our high-value solutions, which increased 37% year-over-year to €61.5 million, while revenue from other containment and delivery solutions was down 4% to €110.9 million due to the revenue benefit in Q1 last year. For the first quarter of 2022, gross profit margin was 32.9%. While the segment benefited from a higher mix of high-value solutions, gross profit margin was unfavorably impacted by the production slowdown due to COVID-19 and, to a lesser extent, inflationary costs. Operating profit margin was 20.7%. The Engineering segment continues to achieve double-digit revenue growth, driven by strong customer demand. For the first quarter, revenue derived from external customers increased 23% to €39.6 million compared to the prior year, driven by strong sales in our glass forming and visual inspection machines; separately, the increase in inter-segment revenue was due to the company's ongoing capacity expansion efforts under its strategic plan. Gross profit margin for the first quarter of 2022 was 21.4%. We've taken steps to improve segment margins, such as growing our more accretive aftersales business and implementing optimization efforts. Operating profit margin was 13.8% in the first quarter. Turning to Slide 15, our balance sheet is strong and, as of the end of March, we maintained a positive net financial position of €143.3 million, and we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents on hand of €366.7 million. Our increased working capital needs are partly reflective of our sensible approach to keeping more inventories on hand and navigating the current business and supply chain environment as we drive long-term sustainable growth. For the first quarter, cash generated from operating activities was €5.2 million. We are executing against strategic priorities and our global expansion plans. As a result, capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2022 were €53.8 million, and the main driver behind the negative free cash flow of €48.8 million. Turning now to Slide 16. We thought it would be useful to provide a breakdown of our forecasted 2022 CapEx plans. As the chart illustrates, our top priority is centered on growth platforms with 82% of spend for Italy, the U.S., and China to expand our capacity in high-value solutions, to meet the growing demand for this premium product set. We believe this demand-driven investment creates a best path to deliver organic sustainable growth over the long term. We are investing 6% into our R&D activities. As Franco noted, our R&D efforts are focused on innovating in our glass primary packaging products and the advancement of our drug delivery devices to maintain and accelerate our market-leading position. Finally, 12% from other investments are for innovation in operating efficiency and quality, information technology, maintenance, and safety. On Slide 17, we are maintaining our full-year guidance. We believe that revenue from COVID may be lower than our initial expectations, which was in the mid-teens as a percentage of 2022 revenue. It is more likely to be at the lower end of that range and favorably offset by higher revenue in our base business. For fiscal year 2022, we continue to expect revenue in the range from €935 million to €945 million; adjusted diluted EPS in the range from €0.49 to €0.51, assuming weighted average shares outstanding of 264.7 million; and adjusted EBITDA in the range from €248 million to €253 million.

In closing, on Page 18, we delivered another quarter of solid financial results that were in line with our expectations. We are building a track record of consistent performance, and this gives us the confidence to maintain our fiscal 2022 guidance. We are operating in an environment of strong demand, with attractive end markets, with durable secular multiyear drivers. We are poised to capitalize on these favorable trends as customers develop more advanced treatments that demand a more sophisticated approach to drug containment. At the same time, we are strengthening our portfolio of drug delivery solutions to improve patients' lives as therapies shift from the point of lab to the point of care. Through these efforts and more, we are investing in areas that ensure that the Stevanato Group remains at the forefront of scientific innovation and a trusted partner for our customers. We are excited about the future. With that, let's open it up for questions.

The first question we have from the phone lines comes from Derik De Bruin of Bank of America.

I have a couple of questions. I apologize for being on and off the call. What is the embedded expectation for organic constant currency growth in the guidance at this point?

So the foreign exchange rate effect is embedded in our guidance, favorably impacting Q1. But in the guidance, we are taking into account the opportunities and risks, and the foreign exchange is one of them. Nevertheless, we still expect double-digit organic growth without taking into account the foreign exchange effect.

It's encouraging to see double-digit organic revenue growth. Have you been able to maintain guidance even as COVID-related benefits fade? Can you provide any insight into how this might trend in the coming quarters and your initial thoughts on 2023 and how to mitigate risks?

Yes, let me just say that we are also sorry for the technical issues you experienced in the beginning of this call, and thanks so much to everybody for staying with us in the call. Then, Derik, the answer to your point is that, as Marco said, we have the possibility to confirm our guidance. We always take into account the possibility of a quarterly fluctuation. We see the overall trends for the business being very strong in terms of the base business. And also the trends related to COVID are still there in terms of the possibility of having a different situation in the last part of the year, taking into consideration all the variables at that time in place. In terms of the view about next year, it's very early to speculate about COVID itself. We have a very strong backlog, very strong demand that are in place and give us lots of opportunities. So we remain optimistic about keeping the trends for the future years.

We now have John Kreger from the line of Justin Lin of William Blair.

Congratulations on the quarter. I have a follow-up question regarding Derik's inquiry about COVID. I understand you're adjusting estimates to the low teens for the year. My question is whether your customers are canceling orders or if some orders are being delayed until 2023. Any additional insights you can share would be very helpful.

Yes, we had changes in the forecast of our customers for COVID business. But in the meantime, we adjusted our forecast for different therapeutic areas. As a matter of fact, we've already backfilled the changes in one direction with the good changes in the right direction linked to different therapeutic areas. It's something that always in any therapeutic area, but we confirm the guidance for the year because of these very strong positive trends in other therapeutic areas. And the overall demand, I can confirm, is still strong for the overall business.

In terms of high-value solutions, it has been quite strong in recent quarters. I believe we are likely above the trend line we communicated or expected a few months ago. However, the longer-term target of mid-30% has not changed since then. What do you think is holding back the growth of high-value solutions?

Yes. You are right. First of all, the trajectory is there. We did 22% in 2020, almost 25% last year. And we have a forecast this year guidance of high 20%. So we are in line with our trajectory to reach the mid-30% by 2026. And we are, let's say, confident we will be there in the next year. So the shifting is happening. We push as much as possible to accelerate the conversion.

We now have Dave Windley of Jefferies.

Just following on Justin's question on the high-value solutions. Could you talk qualitatively first about which among your portfolio of high-value solutions your clients are leaning toward or demanding the most?

Yes. Thank you, David. It's a very exciting topic for us. Overall, we see very strong demand in many of our high-value solutions. As you asked, I can say that we have a very strong demand in our syringes in Nexa and Alba configuration. But in the meantime, we had also the same good welcome from the market in terms of Nexa vials. And we know that we are pushing the conversion of the market from glass vials to EZ-fill vials. The demand is so strong. We are investing a lot to match the increase in demand. And we see a very, very favorable trend for the future. It's one of our focuses, and we will continue to push very strongly.

Franco, regarding your comments about increasing client uptake, we've witnessed several announcements related to capacity expansion. I'm particularly thinking about contract manufacturers that are adding filling lines. Can you share any updates on that front? I understand that it may be more challenging to sell the EZ-fill concept to contract manufacturers, but are you experiencing success in getting them to adjust or configure those filling lines to be compatible with EZ-fill?

I'm not really sure I captured the full question, but we are so strongly focused on our value proposition linked to what is now our integrated offering in terms of having different business lines in terms of EZ-fill vials. We are not in the space of filling, if I captured your question, right.

Please go ahead, sorry. Go ahead.

Dave, just to clarify your question, I think what you're asking is that from the adoption of the high-value solutions, are we seeing more filling lines going in at contract manufacturers as an example? Is that the spirit of your question?

Yes. Are your customers installing lines that are configured for EZ-fill? I understand that to be a precursor to their adoptions of actual EZ-fill vials.

Yes. Sorry for my misunderstanding at the beginning of the answer. Yes, the answer is yes, we see more adoption. We know that some of our customers are planning the conversion of their capacity, not only for the short-term installation but also in the longer run to have different capabilities in terms of filling lines, shifting to ready-to-use format. This is the trend. Obviously, we are working in partnership with many customers to understand their needs and also to be in line with their expectations for the next future. The answer is yes.

Great. I apologize for not asking my question clearly. I have a couple of questions regarding the numbers. Can you share the percentage of your revenue from EZ-fill that isn't considered high value? Also, could you provide some insight on how much of your backlog you expect to recognize in 2022 and how much will extend into 2023?

So I start from the backlog. The backlog is we are pretty happy with the orders intake and the backlog about high-value solutions. This has given us strong confidence in delivering the high 20% we mentioned before as revenue in the year. So the backlog is very consistent with this assumption for 2022. About your question about EZ-fill, we are keeping on growing EZ-fill. Most importantly, we are converting our capacity to our high-value solution. So in a nutshell, we will not disclose the KPI as usual, as EZ-fill are growing less than 37% high-value solutions are growing. I hope this is enough for you to model.

We now have Paul Knight from KeyBanc.

The pricing, you mentioned that will flow through for the current quarter or the rest of the year. So pricing wasn't fully in place in the first quarter, Marco?

Yes. So as we explained, there has been a sharp increase in natural gas prices that is part of our process. As a matter of fact, we have had some delay in transferring price adjustments as this increase was pretty strong at the end of Q4 and in Q1. We're estimating about €1 million to hit. The other negative effect we mentioned is about the Omicron variant that impacted our production in January and February due to absenteeism. Nevertheless, through the shift into our high-value solutions, we have been able to improve the margin compared to Q4 in spite of the very same mix. So I think, yes, we offset the two headwinds through the shift into high-value solutions and efficiencies we put in place.

Franco, your backlog increased by 49% compared to the previous year. Is this primarily due to EZ-fill? Do you think it’s related to monoclonals or affected by trends in generics? What can you tell us about the reasons for this increase in backlog?

Yes, it's a very good point because, as you mentioned, the shift to high-value solutions is continuing to proceed according to our expectations or with a very optimistic view for the future. In terms of therapeutic areas or technologies that we see very strong demand is mostly linked to biotech and partially to biosimilars. There are general growth also in other areas, but our focus and our best opportunities are in biotech and biosimilars.

Okay. Lastly, on the dividend, thanks for the shareholder vote June 1. Would that be a dividend for the third quarter, Marco?

The record date is expected to be June 14.

And the pay date is in July, Paul. It's in our AGM materials that are on our website, and I will send that to you after the call for you, so you have the specifics.

Okay. That's a quarterly dividend starting at that time.

It's an annual dividend.

It's an annual dividend, Paul.

We now have Tim Daley of Wells Fargo.

I wanted to revisit Dave's question regarding the backlog, specifically the general ordering trends and how they impact backlog growth and your inventory management. You mentioned that you are increasing safety stock and ordering raw materials further in advance to avoid supply chain disruptions. When we consider the growth of your backlog, I assume customers might be adopting similar strategies. Can you clarify how much of the backlog growth is attributed to these customer behaviors, such as placing orders further out or increasing their safety stock? If that’s not relevant, I can ask other questions afterward.

I'll start with the numbers, then I'll probably hand over to Franco for other comments. So first of all, we have strong visibility to our backlog. We are happy about the intake and the backlog about high-value solutions. This has given us strong confidence in delivering the high 20% we mentioned before as revenue in the year. So the backlog is very consistent with this assumption for 2022. At the same time, we are building the foundation for next year. We have in excess of €370 million for the years to come. So we are building the foundation also for 2023 and beyond. We have strong backlog in both segments and the shift in the mix is shifting to our high-value solution. I'll hand over to Franco for some other comments.

Yes, in terms of the trends that you can imagine about booking advanced capacity, I must say at least two things. The first one is that we are not in front of temporary upside reasons. The backlog is stronger because the mid to long-term demand is strong, not because we are in a crisis that impacts our supply for pharma. Meanwhile, we are very close to our customers. What we have to do to secure our own supply chain for material coming from different suppliers, different areas, also geographic areas, is not the same case for our pharma customers, as we are very close to them. So I don't think that we can copy and paste what we are doing to secure the supply chain in terms of what our customers are doing in terms of their own demand. It is the long-term steady growth in our business that is driving the backlog, and obviously, the success of our specific value proposition, high-value solutions, and the flexibility that we deliver to our customers.

Great. That's very encouraging commentary. Appreciate that. And so now I wanted to touch on the exclusive agreement. So we saw a couple of press releases come out this quarter. I guess if we just dove into the Owen Mumford kind of anecdote here. So can you just kind of run us through how the economics work and effectively, with the exclusive agreement, what has materially changed? I know you guys were expecting previously, and how do you convince a customer like this to effectively fully integrate your solutions here? So how do you increase the penetration of the glass components beyond the plastics and the assembly exclusivity that you have?

Yes. Obviously, I cannot disclose any specific figures linked to this specific agreement and the expected outcome in term of business. What I can say is that the approach to DDS is part of our overall strategy where we want to become more and more of a solution provider for our customer. DDS space that is fast-growing is not in the very short term, but in the mid to long term, is the fast-growing area because of its coherence with mega trends like chronic diseases, like providing patients better life in terms of staying away from the hospital and taking the treatments at home. So this is the strategic reason why we are investing in that space. The life cycle of DDS projects is not the short one; it's for me the long run. And that is the reason why we are pushing our efforts in R&D in that direction.

Tim, just to clarify, I think that we have one more question that was tied into your string of questions regarding the integrated capabilities and the glass component as well.

Yes. Yes. We mentioned several times that in the DDS space, we play with all our capabilities in glass, in plastic for injection modeling and then for the assembly line that are part of our engineering offer. All together, we can provide the customer the fully integrated solution to have DDS available, and on top of that, we also put our experience in services to develop the right containment solution for the customers.

And does that answer your question?

Yes, no. That's great.

We now have John Sourbeer of UBS.

Could you talk a little bit on the regional performance in the quarter across Americas, EMEA, and APAC? And anything to highlight in the second quarter from China lockdowns?

Yes. I start from the regional breakdown, as you will find it in a 6-K long form. Europe is still the main market with 58.5%. North America is the second market with 25% of the revenue. We have about 13.4% in Asia Pacific and 3.2% in Latin America. So we are keeping on growing in Asia Pacific. And the other very important market for us in the medium term is North America, of course. I don't recall your second question. Sorry.

I can take it, Marco. You asked about Q2. In COVID, it's very difficult to say anything. We cannot anticipate anything about Q2. I can reinforce what the outcomes are in Q1, when we experienced in the area where we have our own facility short-term lockdown for 2 weeks. In that period, we secured the continuity of the business in the closed-loop setup, having our people in the plant working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I take the chance also to say thank you to all our colleagues because they experienced a very tough time. They showed our customer-centric approach to secure the supply for our customers even if the environment was so strong and difficult. So thanks to all our colleagues in China.

And on the capital expansion in Italy, any update there? And any way to quantify when you expect these to start generating revenue?

We are investing in Italy and anticipate benefiting from the capacity expansion next year. Regarding the new green facility in the U.S. and China, we expect to start generating revenue in late 2023 in the U.S. and in the mid-second half of 2024 in China.

John, I just want to clarify your question as it relates to our Italy capacity expansion. Can you please ask that question again?

Yes. I guess I saw the updates, I think specifically on North America and China in the presentation. Just any update there on Italy? And have you stated when you expect these to start generating?

It's not just a switch. We are continuing investing for many years in Italy. So we are releasing additional capacity month by month, if not quarter by quarter. So we are in line with our investment plan in Italy. And we will see more capacity available also in the next month, but it's not a one-off. It's several lines that are coming in production weeks after weeks, if not more frequently.

We now have a next question from Drew Ranieri of Morgan Stanley.

Marco, this question might be directed at you, but as you maintain your 2022 guidance, could you provide some insight on the potential growth for BDS and Engineering this year? It appears that Engineering might be exceeding our expectations, so any additional details would be appreciated. Additionally, are there any one-time licensing orders we should expect in the remaining quarters of the year?

Today, so let's start from the end. We don't expect any one-time for the months to come, as of today, obviously based on what we know. About your question about Engineering, we went up very rapidly last year. We went up about 50% year-over-year in '21. As mentioned during our previous earnings call, we expect high single-digit growth this year, and this is what we have in our guidance today. On the other segment, we expect double-digit growth, having an overall growth of 11.4% if we take the center point of our guidance. We are not changing our model today. We are in the first quarter, basically we have a robust backlog impact in both segments, providing us good visibility on the next month.

Does that answer your question, Drew?

Yes, sorry. I wanted to ask about the one-time orders, specifically regarding a year-over-year comparison. Were there any one-time orders in Q2, Q3, or Q4 of 2021 that are similar to what we saw in the first quarter of the previous year?

You mean in the prior year? Well, definitely, at the end of the year, we saw an increase in interest income and the sale of a minority stake in Swissfillon which improved the margin this time. I don't remember any other major event besides the one-time bonus we gave to employees in the third quarter, and the conclusion of an older stock agreement with a manager in the second quarter. Last year, we had many nonrecurring events. If we look at our adjusted EBITDA, it has been impacted by this specific event from last year as well. So those are the main items from last year, but we consider them basically as nonrecurring.

As that was our final question, I'd like to hand it back to Lisa Miles for some closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. I want to thank everyone for joining the call today and persevering through the technical challenges that we had. On behalf of the management team, we appreciate your support, and have a great day.