Good afternoon. My name is Tiffany and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Millipore's First Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Joshua Young. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Tiffany. Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to Millipore's First Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Joshua Young and I am the Director of Investor Relations for Millipore. And joining me on today's call are: Martin Madaus, Chairman, President and CEO; and Charlie Wagner, Chief Financial Officer. In addition to the earnings release we issued earlier today, we will also be referencing a slide presentation as part of today's call. The presentation can be viewed by clicking on the webcast link on the millipore.com homepage or by accessing Millipore's Investor Relations website. A PDF copy of the slides is posted to the website currently. We will also be highlighting non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of our GAAP financials to our non-GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings release and posted on our website. Before we begin, I'd like to make the usual Safe Harbor statement that during the course of this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding future events for the financial performance of the company that involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in today's earnings release and in our Form 10-K, as well as other subsequent SEC filings. Also note that the following information is related to current business conditions and our outlook as of today, May 6, 2010. Consistent with our prior practice, we do not intend to update our projections based on new information, future events or other reasons prior to the release of our second quarter 2010 financial results. On today's call, we will provide details of our current business performance and market trends. However, due to our pending transaction with Merck, we will not hold a formal Q&A session and will conclude the call at the end of our formal remarks. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Martin Madaus.

Thanks, Joshua, and good evening, everyone. And thank you for joining us on the call today. Q1 was an outstanding quarter for Millipore. We started 2010 right where we left off in 2009, delivering exceptional financial performance, outperforming many of our peers who faced easier year-over-year comparisons. We posted record quality sales and non-GAAP earnings per share in Q1. While continuing to improve our balance sheet, we generate attractive cash flow. Our execution is strong as it has ever been and we're launching innovative products that are taking market share from competitors, from our billing capabilities that are strengthening organization. So we're on track for a great 2010. The key takeaways for Q1 are the following: Our growth is strong and well-balanced between both our Bioprocess, Bioscience divisions. Each division generated impressive double-digit growth in the Americas and Asia, and saw strong underlying demand among our core businesses. Second, we're seeing a significant contribution to our revenue growth from new products. So we have implemented a number of initiatives to accelerate our innovations and we have increased the number of innovative products that we launch in each year. So I'm really happy to report that these products are actually making an impact penetrating the market and driving higher growth. Third, our Bioscience division rebounded and generated impressive top line growth after a somewhat challenging year in 2009. The division reported strong laboratory instrumentation sales. And saw a sharp uptick in demand from a large North American pharmaceutical customer same time in the week last year. So I'm encouraged by the strong start and we expect the division to benefit at global economic conditions steadily improve. Fourth, our Bioprocess business picked up right where it left off last year. The division generated exceptional growth of demand. And the biotechnology industry continues…

Thanks, Martin. Now I'll provide some additional details on first quarter results beginning with a discussion of our GAAP operating results in the first quarter. Total revenues increased 14% from last year's first quarter, totaling $463 million, excluding a 5% favorable impact from changes in foreign exchange rates, organic revenue growth was 9% in the first quarter. Our gross profit margin in the first quarter increased 130 basis points on a year-over-year basis to 56% from 54.7% in Q1 2009, due in part to lower cost associated with our global supply chain initiative. Our higher gross margins helped to drive 150 basis points improvement in our operating margin. And our earnings per share increased 4% to $0.99 from $0.95 in Q1 2009. And remember, the Q1 2009 results included the effect of a $9 million gain related to our acquisition of Guava Technologies. In Q1 2010, earnings also were affected by a $2.1 million year-over-year increase in our fully diluted share count due in part to a higher Millipore stock price. This caused our convertible debt to become dilutive in the stock calculation, and a higher year-over-year share count lowered our Q1 EPS by about $0.03. From a geographic perspective and excluding the effects of foreign currency translation, our revenues grew an impressive 28% in Asia during Q1. This robust growth was driven primarily by China and Singapore. Additionally, our business in Japan rebounded nicely and generated 7% organic revenue growth in the quarter after struggling through most of 2009. In the Americas, we generated 14% organic revenue growth with both our divisions growing double digits in the region. The strength of the biotechnology industry and the strong performance of our Life Science business unit were the primary drivers of this growth. Our revenues declined 5% in Europe during Q1.…

Thank you, Charlie. It is quite possible that this will be Millipore's last earnings call as an independent market company. Looking back at the last five years of leading Millipore, one of the most interesting and stimulating responsibilities of my job as a CEO, has been the building of great relationships with many of you and open dialogue. I want to thank all of you who invested in Millipore over the years for your trust in me and the management team. And to thank the analysts for their insightful and diligent work. I'll do everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition to Merck in the coming months. What happens, I'll look forward to speaking with you again sometimes in the future. Thank you for joining us this evening. And good night.

And before we close the conference call, we just want to correct one mistake. We indicated that our proxy and proxy dialogue was sent last week. And we commenced the mailing and sent these proxies earlier this week. And so shareholders will be receiving these materials over the course of the next couple of weeks. With that, we will conclude tonight's call. And thank you for joining us.

Thank you for participating in today's Millipore's First Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference Call. This call will be available for replay beginning at 6:45 p.m. Eastern Time, today through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, May 9, 2010. The conference ID number for the replay is 63837291. The number to dial for the replay is 1-800-642-1687 or 1-706-645-9291. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.