Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, announced today financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018 and updated its outlook for full-year 2018.
"We grew revenues and continued to deliver strong earnings growth in the third quarter," said Steve Rusckowski, Chairman, President and CEO. "We had a productive quarter, announcing three acquisitions and a Professional Lab Services agreement. We are updating our full-year revenue guidance to reflect lower than expected revenue performance this year, which has been affected in large part by industry headwinds we called out in the previous quarter. Looking ahead, our acquisition pipeline, along with our expanding health plan access, including UnitedHealthcare beginning January 1, position us well for growth in 2019."
Note on Non-GAAP Financial Measures
As used in this press release the term "reported" refers to measures under the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States ("GAAP"). The term "adjusted" refers to non-GAAP measures as follows: (i) for the purpose of income measures the term "adjusted" refers to operating performance measures that exclude special items such as restructuring and integration charges, excess tax benefit ("ETB") associated with stock based compensation and other items; and (ii) the term "adjusted diluted EPS excluding amortization" represents the company's diluted EPS before the impact of special items (described above) and amortization expense.
Non-GAAP adjusted measures are presented because management believes those measures are useful adjuncts to GAAP results. Non-GAAP adjusted measures should not be considered as an alternative to the corresponding measures determined under GAAP. Management may use these non-GAAP measures to evaluate our performance period over period and relative to competitors, to analyze the underlying trends in our business, to establish operational budgets and forecasts and for incentive compensation purposes. We believe that these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors and analysts to evaluate our performance period over period and relative to competitors, as well as to analyze the underlying trends in our business and to assess our performance. The additional tables attached below include reconciliations of adjusted measures to GAAP measures.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and our 45,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
