Quest Diagnostics at UBS Global Life Sciences Conference - Final.(Broadcast transcript)

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Good morning and welcome to the third day of the 2008 UBS Global Life Sciences Conference. It is my pleasure to introduce this morning's first speaker from Quest Diagnostics, Mr. Bob Hagemann, the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, there will be breakout session in the Broadway Room immediately following this presentation. Thank you.

BOB HAGEMANN, SVP AND CFO, QUEST DIAGNOSTICS: Good morning. Thank you for coming out so early to hear about Quest Diagnostics. With me today is our Vice President of Investor Relations, Laure Park. She will join me for the breakout afterwards.

All right. I think most of you know who Quest Diagnostics is, so I'm not going to go over a lot of detail on this slide, but the point of this slide is to make it clear that we're more than a laboratory testing company -- frankly, a lot more. Obviously, we provide comprehensive diagnostic testing from the most routine to the most complex and esoteric that there is. But in addition, we offer advanced information technology solutions to hospitals and physicians, which are actually helping them improve care.

In addition to that, we facilitate the introduction of new therapeutics by pharmaceutical companies through our clinical trials testing business. And we offer innovative diagnostic products that are allowing testing to move closer and closer to the patient. Lastly, we are a leader in offering risk assessment solutions to the life insurance industry. But most importantly, when you think about this slide, this is a company with incredible reach, serving 150 million patients a year, serving half of all the physicians and the hospitals in the United States.

The vast majority of our business, over 95%, is US-based, and the US market looks something like this. We estimate it to be about $50 billion in revenues. And at 15% of the total market, we are the clear leader, 60% larger than our nearest competitor. As you can see from the slide here, hospitals make up about 60% of the market. There are literally thousands of hospitals that have laboratories. Hospitals are customers of ours as well as being competitors of ours. In some markets they compete for the physician business with their outreach operations.

But the point of this slide is that this continues to be a very fragmented market despite the fact that there's been consolidation, a fair amount over the last 10 years or so. As we think about this market here in the US, we believe it's one that is going to continue to grow, principally because of the favorable trends that you see here, in addition to the fact that this is an essential health-care service. Diagnostic testing is clearly an essential service, when you think about the fact that it influences over 70% of health-care decisions. Couple that with the fact that it accounts for 2% to 3% for the total health-care spend, it makes this the real high-value add in health care.

Early detection and prevention continues to be, and will be for some time the best way to reduce the overall cost of health care. Couple that with these favorable trends here, obviously a growing and aging population. As we get older we need more testing done. Advances in science and medicine are accelerating the pace with which new tests are coming to market.

Individuals are taking an increased interest in their own health, leading to increased demand for screening and predisposition testing. And we're seeing a convergence of not only various types of testing, but we're seeing information technology play a role in bringing those results together to help physicians improve care.

This is played out as you look at what has happened with our mix of business …