Thank you for joining Corning's annual meeting of shareholders. Please welcome Corning's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Wendell Weeks.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming out today. We appreciate it. It's nice to see so many familiar faces. Welcome. The annual meeting of shareholders of Corning Incorporated will please come to order. I'm Wendell Weeks, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, and President. Seated to my left are Linda Jolly, Secretary of the Corporation, and Douglas Czarnecki, the Inspector of Election. Today's meeting will include our official business, as well as my reflections on the state of your company. Following the meeting, we'll have a special presentation from Dr. Richard Eglen, Vice President and General Manager of Corning Life Sciences. You all have the printed agenda for the meeting, but let me review the formal actions that we'll take. Ms. Jolly will report the number of shares being voted and confirm that the meeting has been properly called.
I will introduce the board of directors. I'll call for a motion for the election of 14 directors. I'll call for a motion for the advisory vote on executive compensation. I'll call for a motion to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as Corning's independent registered public accounting firm for 2019. I'll call for a motion to approve the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors. Finally, I'll call for a motion and a vote on all four of these items. After this formal action is completed, I will discuss the state of the company. Some of you may have questions not covered in my formal remarks. Company officers will be available in the lobby immediately following the meeting to answer any of your questions or guide you to the best people to address your concerns. They'll be wearing white badges so you can easily identify them.
There will also be an opportunity to ask questions following my remarks. Just a note, any valid ballots handed in at today's meeting won't be in this morning's preliminary vote totals, but of course, they will be included in the official vote tally reflected in Corning's SEC filing. We'll start the formal part of the meeting. Madam Secretary, may we have your report on the number of shareholders represented here today?
Mr. Chairman, as of March 4th, 2019, the record date for this meeting, the company had 785,218,735 shares of common stock outstanding and the same number of shares entitled to vote. The Inspector of Election has determined that 687,041,894 shares outstanding entitled to vote are represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. This is 87.5% of the shares entitled to vote and represents a quorum for purposes of this meeting.
As you heard, a quorum is present. May we now have a report on the proof of call and notice of this meeting?
Mr. Chairman, this meeting is being held pursuant to a notice mailed on March 22nd, 2019 to shareholders of record on March 4th, 2019. A list of shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting is available for inspection.
Thank you. Please file the documents with the meeting minutes. Speaking of meeting minutes, it is not our practice to have the secretary read last year's meeting minutes. However, if anyone wishes to examine last year's minutes, please see Ms. Jolly after the meeting. I will now introduce the members of the board of directors and ask them to stand when I say their name. Please hold your applause until everyone has been introduced. Mr. Donald Blair, retired Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nike. Mr. Leslie Brun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sarr Group. Dr. Stephanie Burns, retired Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Dow Corning Corporation. Mr. John Canning, Chairman of Madison Dearborn Partners. Our lead director, Mr. Richard Clark, retired Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Merck. Ms. Deborah Henretta, retired Group President of Global e-Business at Procter & Gamble Company.
Dr. Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell University's New York City Tech campus. Mr. Kurt Landgraf, President of Washington College. Mr. Kevin Martin, Vice President, Mobile and Global Access Policy at Facebook. Dr. Deborah Rieman, retired Executive Chairman of MetaMarkets Group. Mr. Hansel Tookes, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Raytheon Aircraft. Dr. Mark Wrighton, Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Most of you know one of our former directors, who is here today, Jim Flaws, retired Vice Chairman and CFO. We're honored to have him with us today. We appreciate his ongoing participation, and we appreciate the service of our board of directors. Please give them a round of applause. The first business of the day is to elect each of the 14 directors to a one-year term. I now call for nominations for directors.
Mr. Chairman, I move the following be elected directors of the corporation to serve a one-year term or until their successors have been elected. Donald Blair, Leslie Brun, Stephanie Burns, John Canning, Richard Clark, Robert Cummings, Deborah Henretta, Daniel Huttenlocher, Kurt Landgraf, Kevin Martin, Deborah Rieman, Hansel Tookes, Wendell Weeks, and Mark Wrighton.
I second that motion.
Is there any discussion? The second proposal calls for an advisory vote of shareholders approving the corporation's executive compensation as disclosed in the proxy statement. I'll now entertain a motion and resolution for that approval.
Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of the following resolution. Resolved that on an advisory, non-binding basis, the total compensation paid to the company's named executive officers, the CEO, the CFO, and the three other most highly compensated individuals, as disclosed in the proxy statement for the 2019 annual meeting of shareholders pursuant to the SEC's Executive Compensation Disclosure rule, including the Compensation Discussion and Analysis, the Summary Compensation Table, and the supporting tabular and related narrative disclosure on executive compensation is hereby approved.
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion? The third proposal calls for ratification of the Audit Committee's appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as Corning's independent registered public accounting firm for 2019. I'll now entertain a motion and resolution for that ratification.
Mr. Chairman, I move adoption of the following resolution. Resolve that the shareholders of the corporation ratify the Audit Committee's appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the corporation's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2019.
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion? The final proposal calls for approval of the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors. I will now entertain a motion and resolution for that approval.
Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of the following resolution. Resolved that the shareholders of the corporation hereby approve the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors.
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion? Now it's time to review the voting procedures for the four pending motions. Under the corporation's bylaws and SEC rules, the election of 14 directors, the advisory vote on executive compensation, the ratification of the independent registered public accounting firm, and the approval of the adoption of the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors will be voted by ballot. Now, most shareholders have already voted. If you previously voted, there is no need for you to vote again today. Any shareholder who waited and needs to vote now should use the ballot that you received at home, then raise your hand and an usher in a red coat will collect it. You can also obtain a ballot from an usher, also by raising your hand. Looks like we've all voted. Someone wants to do it later, our ushers will be available.
They'll collect any ballots and give them to the Inspector of Election at the end of the meeting to be included in the final vote count. I now ask the Inspector of Election to report the results to the meeting.
Mr. Chairman, I report that each of the 14 director nominees was elected to the company's board of directors by a majority of the votes cast. The majority of votes cast also were in favor of the company's executive compensation program, the ratification of the audit committee's appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2019, and approval of the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors.
Thank you. I declare that all 14 nominees for director are elected, the company's executive compensation program is approved, the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2019 is ratified, and the 2019 equity plan for non-employee directors is approved. As I said earlier, today's vote results are preliminary. A final detailed numbers will be filed with the SEC in a Form 8-K in just a few days. Is there any further business to come before the formal part of today's meeting? If not, I will entertain a motion for adjournment.
I so move.
Second.
All in favor say, "Aye.
Aye.
Ordered. I declare this meeting adjourned. That concludes the formal part of the meeting. I'd like to talk with you a little bit about how your company is doing. Before I do that, I must remind you that today's remarks will include some forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially. You can find detailed risk factors in our most recent 10-K and also on Corning's website. You should also be aware that we use certain non-GAAP financial measures and performance indicators to assess Corning's financial and operating performance. You can always find a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures on our website. It's my pleasure to report that your company is in great shape. Since I addressed you last year, we have delivered strong financial results, returned cash to shareholders, and launched new products that extend our track record of innovation.
Most importantly, we have continued to live the values that make Corning such a special company. Let's begin with a quick review of our financial performance. In 2018, core sales were $11.4 billion, and core earnings per share were $1.78, both up 11% year-over-year. All of our businesses contribute to this outstanding performance. On Tuesday, we announced our first quarter results, which provided a solid start to what we expect to be another strong year. Not only did we grow sales in all of our business segments, we also grew significantly more than the S&P 500. Corning's core sales were up 13% from last year versus an average expectation of 5% for the S&P. Earnings per share were up 29% year-over-year, while the S&P is expected to be down an average of 3.9%. Of course, the numbers only tell a part of the story.
We believe the real measure of our performance is our execution against the strategy and capital allocation framework that we introduced to all of you in October of 2015. Let's review the framework briefly so you understand our priorities and our plans for achieving our goals. The framework articulates our strategy for leveraging Corning's financial strength and focusing our portfolio to deliver value for our stakeholders. Under the framework, we target generating between $26 billion and $30 billion in cash between 2016 and the end of this year. We plan to return more than $12.5 billion to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We plan to invest $10 billion to extend our leadership and deliver growth. The framework focuses our portfolio on a set of capabilities with very strong interconnections.
Our best-in-the-world capabilities include three core technologies, four manufacturing and engineering platforms, and five market access platforms. We direct 80% of our resources to opportunities that draw from at least two of these three capability sets. We believe this approach increases the likelihood of our success. It reduces the cost of innovation, it creates much stronger competitive advantages. How are we doing? Well, we're extremely pleased with our execution here. Since introducing the framework more than three years ago, we've returned $12.3 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and quarterly dividends. Repurchases have reduced outstanding shares by 37%. We've increased our annual dividend per share by 67%. Our investments in product development and manufacturing capacity are delivering sales and profitability growth in all of our markets. We expect to continue seeing the benefits of our investments through the end of this year and beyond.
In addition, we extended our leadership across our market access platforms. Here's just a few highlights. In Optical Communications, our customers pass more than 45 million homes globally with our fiber-to-the-home solutions. We launched new products that reduce network costs and increase the speed of installation. In mobile consumer electronics, we extended our leadership in the cover glass market by introducing Gorilla Glass 6. We also benefited from stronger demand for glass on the back of smartphones, which helps enable wireless charging and support higher data rates. In display, we ramped the world's first Gen 10.5 LCD glass plant to support the growth of large-size televisions. In automotive, we exceeded $50 million in sales for our new Gasoline Particulate Filter technology. We're also experiencing very strong customer pull for Gorilla Glass for automotive, with demand materializing much faster than we originally expected.
In life science vessels, we continue to grow faster than the market, driven by our leadership in cell culture vessels. We also increased shipments of Valor Glass, a revolutionary pharmaceutical packaging solution, as we support customers preparing for their regulatory filings. We made very strong progress in each of our market access platforms. We also strengthened Corning's reputation as an innovator. In 2018, our people earned 518 U.S. patents. We also earned more than 1,400 patents outside the U.S. Earlier this year, Fast Company named Corning one of the world's most innovative companies. Of course, we believe that how we do things is as important as what we achieve. We're committed to making the world a better place, not only with our innovations, but also with our actions.
Now, here are just a few ways that we're helping to create a sustainable future for the company, the communities in which we operate, and the planet that we all share. Corning is doing its part to help protect the environment, not only through our products, but also through the ongoing improvement of our processes and services. Over the past decade, we've increased our energy efficiency by more than 35%. We've expanded the use of solar panels at our facilities. Just a couple of weeks ago, we earned our sixth consecutive ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award from the Environmental Protection Agency. We're committed to ensuring diverse, inclusive, and engaging environments for our employees all around the world. Last year, we had the opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of formal diversity initiatives at Corning. We received a score of 100 on the 2018 Disability Equality Index.
Just recently, Forbes named us one of America's best large employers. We're also dedicated to strengthening the communities where we live and work by investing in education, cultural organizations, health and human services as well as economic development. In the past year, we promoted literacy through initiatives such as the Corning Valley Read-In Program. We helped underprivileged children in China gain better access to programs offering scientific education, and we financed a new elementary school in India, near our facility in Pune. Our people are also generous with their time and their talent. From building homes for low-income families right here in Corning, to renovating a school cafeteria in Mexico, our people never fail to give back. Around the globe, they participate in blood drives, volunteer at food pantries, hold fundraising events to help people in need.
I cannot possibly list every example, but I am so very proud of how our people continue to live Corning values and to make a difference both inside and outside the workplace. When you add all that up, I think you agree that Corning is not only a company that delivers strong results, but also one you can be proud of. As we look ahead, we're on track to fully deliver the goals of our strategy and capital allocation framework, and we expect 2019 to be another year of strong growth. Longer term, important trends are converging around Corning's core capabilities. Bringing these trends to life requires materials and technologies that have been our fundamental strength for decades. Moreover, they're putting us right in the center as a critical participant in very complex, interconnected ecosystems that are required to deliver these life-changing innovations.
Now, here are just a few of the exciting opportunities in our market access platforms. In Optical Communications, our technologies are enabling the network densification necessary for 5G, which has been called the biggest shift in telecommunications since the invention of the cell phone. We also continue innovating for rapidly evolving applications such as fiber to the home, hyperscale data centers, and in building networks. In mobile consumer electronics, we are the world leader in glass for smartphones, tablets, and emerging categories such as wearables and augmented reality. We continue to help transform the way all of us interact with our devices by delivering the glass performance and form factors sought by the world's most innovative device designers.
In display, we're capturing the benefits from the demand for very large TV screen sizes, but we're also innovating to drive the next round of display innovations, including higher resolution, immersive experiences, and whole new form factors. In automotive, we're helping customers navigate an unprecedented shift that is expected to produce more change in the next 10 years than the automotive industry has experienced in the past 50. Our technologies are enabling cleaner, safer, and more connected cars with elegant consoles that are featuring smartphone sophistication. We expect sales of our Gasoline Particulate Filters to accelerate this year, driven by environmental regulations in Europe and China. We'll be bringing a dedicated manufacturing facility online in the second half of the year to meet the rapidly growing demand for our automotive glass solutions.
Finally, in life science vessels, the need for more effective development, production, and delivery of new medicines increases the demand for our innovations. We expect to extend our leadership in cell culture vessels as the industry moves to biologic drugs, as well as the exciting area of cell therapy. Longer term, we continue to make strong progress with Valor Glass in collaboration with our development partners, Merck and Pfizer. You'll hear much more from Richard Eglen in today's special presentation. I think, as you can see, that we have a robust set of opportunities in diverse markets, emerging trends continue to create challenges that Corning is uniquely qualified to solve with its materials and process expertise. That's why we are so confident in our ability to deliver sustainable performance.
It's why we believe we're entering into a new growth era. It's why you're likely to see even more of Corning's technology enhancing your life in the not too distant future. In closing, I truly believe that Corning's future has never been brighter. We have multiple businesses driving our growth. We have best-in-the-world capabilities that are becoming increasingly vital. We have relationships with industry-leading customers that continue to unlock new opportunities. We have a proven track record of delivering results. Most importantly, we have more than 50,000 employees around the globe committed to making the company stronger and the world better. I look forward to updating you on our progress. Meanwhile, I really hope that you share our pride in the company's achievements and our excitement about the future. Thank you so much for being on this journey with us.
Thank you.
I hope my remarks address some of the topics that were perhaps on your mind. As I noted earlier, we have company officers to be available to answer any of your specific questions following Dr. Eglen's excellent presentation. If you're unable to stay, you can ask your question now.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. My name is Tom Kelly. I'm a representative of the Southwest Carpenters. My question for you is, a topic that has received growing interest in the business press and leading business schools, is the growth in the size of the ownership interest held by mutual funds.
Your line again, I'm sorry.
The ownership interest held by the mutual funds.
Mutual funds. Thank you
particularly passive index funds. BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and T. Rowe Price, each own in excess of 5% of the company's outstanding shares. Could you speak to your view of the growing concentration of institutional investor ownership and its impact on corporate governance? Specifically, does increasing concentration of ownership by passive investors aggravate short-termism in the market, or alternately, enable companies to make long-term strategic perspective? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. I think you're right to point out that there's been a substantial change in company's ownership structure and the investment vehicles that people choose to participate in the equity of companies. It definitely does have a number of impacts. First, at the most macro level, then we'll get to Corning. At the most macro level, I think what's leading to this great amount of investment out of passive funds is their relative performance to active management. People tend to-- Capitalism works, right? People will tend to put their funds where they're getting the most performance for the lowest cost. It turns out that at least in this last run, they have done better on average, than the active funds. People are putting more money in them.
I think this has, by and large, beneficial impacts, primarily because it helps shareholders make more money. That's good. It is a significant change. As such, it also impacts the quality of price discovery in the market. It used to be that we all set the price by buying and selling every day, and when everybody's doing that actively, it leads to better price discovery, like what should the price of Corning shares be? That's less efficient today because these passive funds, they just tend to reset around what other people's price discovery is, and then move with it. That's interesting. I think the focus on short-termism, I can only speak for Corning, which is, that's just not the way we operate.
That's why you see us investing $10 billion, of which only a portion will benefit the four-year time period of that strategy and capital allocation framework. A huge amount of it goes to benefit us over the next 10 years. Because of what we believe, how we think we create value in the world, we tend to be very long-term focused. I must say, we don't think too deeply about what the various forms of our passive investors versus actives, how they want to express themselves around, do they want us to focus more on quarterly earnings or not. We tend to focus on if we do the right thing, if we make the world a better place, if we do best in the world products. It'll all work out. I'm happy to discuss this with you later if you want after, okay? Good questions.
Anybody else? Another one. You're welcome. I'll try to make my answers shorter this time. Don't ask as hard a question.
Well, okay. First time here. Mr. Chairman, my name is Fred Swayze.
My name is Wendell.
Nice to meet you, Wendell.
Nice to meet you.
I represent the Carpenter Union Pension Funds also.
Oh, great.
Our fund, we have shares in Corning. Our pension funds, the Carpenter pension funds, collectively have $60 billion, and we hold 278,000 shares in Corning's common stock.
Thank you.
You're welcome. Being the first time here, I did have a question on one of the proposals. I didn't quite get recognized. Look, I wasn't in the form.
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand up.
I was wondering if I could, Mr. Chairman.
Please
at least ask the question. It was on proposal 2, on the say on pay vote.
Yes.
We were in support of it, okay. We had a question.
Sure
Or a concern of it. The long-term incentive plan contains both a cash and equity component.
Yes.
The CPUs provide a cash payout, the RSUs and stock options provide for an equity award. The question is, the balance of the awards, with the cash award opportunity representing 60% of the long-term incentive award, could you or the chair of the compensation committee explain the rationale for this relatively large cash component in the long-term plan? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Great. That's actually an excellent question. Thank you. The way we think about that is we try to balance the pay incentives between input measures and output measures. The input measures tend to be around our financial performance that we report out in our financial statements. In a way, that's an output, but it is an input into what happens to our stock price, right? We measure ourselves on cash flow, net income, earnings per share, sales growth, all the things normally. We set very aggressive goals, that's one part of the compensation. We take the other part that says we should have a large part of our compensation that basically goes up when the share price goes up and goes down when the share price goes down. The reason we try to balance these actually gets to your previous question.
If we just had 100%, let's say, all around the share price, what we worry about is that creates its own short-term focus. It'll create its own sort of driving everything around that time period and what would maximize our stock price in that time period, not our mission, which is another 167 years of innovation and independence. We seek to try to do that balance. Whether it should be 60 or should be 50 or should be 40 on cash, I think we're open. If you have any ideas on that, we'd be happy to hear them. Please forward them on, and we'd be happy to hear from you. I do think it's important that we have both. What the relative one, we're totally open to dialogue on. Does that make sense to you? Thanks for your service.
My dad was a union plumber, not part of the carpentry fund, too bad, because he probably would've managed his money better. Anyway. Any other questions? Is that a question, or are you just walking out?
That's right.
Okay.
Good morning, Mr. Weeks.
Wendell.
My name is Stephen Harts. I'm an investment advisor with Collins and Company.
Nice to meet you.
I've been making your shareholder meetings for a good 25 years or so.
Oh, nice.
Another nice year for Corning. Continuing to move forward, when I think back to the tough times during the tech wreck, slowly but surely. We've been patient investors. I've got just about my entire client base invested in Corning. It was nice to see the gradual move that we're starting to move forward again here.
Good for you. You've done well then.
Question for you. You did mention that Forbes had honored the organization and the employees. If you could just talk a little bit about employment, wage inflation, attracting and retaining employees in this challenging time that we have right now, and whether or not there is a move towards more automation, artificial intelligence, and the spending that's going on there. Thank you.
Your question is how we doing on bringing in town our own philosophy of growth for our people and how that works with automation and everything like that. Is that right? Awesome. Here's the good news. We're hiring a lot of people. If you find Christy Pambianchi afterwards, she's our CHRO, has done some fabulous job, by the way, and always worth talking to. If she raises her hand, you can find her after. She can give you the details, but basically, we've added about 10,000 people last year. We think basically what happens is we grow, our employment base is going to grow, and we would like to keep doing it. We have had great success at attracting the folks that we need.
That's one of the nice things about being viewed as one of the best large employers in the country, is it makes it a little easier for us to attract people, and I think that's great. People who want to be part of our values and what we do, they join us. We're open about it, and I think that helps us. As far as automation goes, I think you're looking at a never-ending trend towards it. I don't think it is a destroyer of either human dignity or their ability to earn. It sort of sits at the core of productivity and how we afford to continue to, every year, increase our people's pay.
Whether they're on the factory floor, in the laboratory, out in the field selling our products and helping delight our customers, is that constantly increasing productivity, because our prices go down every year to our customers. We need to create a lot of cost reduction, a lot of product improvements to be able to keep us growing and keep our customers happy. This sort of strong investment in automation and equipment help us do that. That being said, it's our job to make sure we take care of our people. No matter what future we see on the manufacturing floor, when you join Corning, we tend to view this as, we got you. We hope to have you for your entire career. We'll keep re-skilling you, and we'll keep giving you chances to try this and try that. That's what we try to do.
We don't always get it perfectly right, we try our hearts in the right place. Does that make sense? Okay, thank you. Any other questions? If you do find Christy later, she'll have a much better answer than me. She's pretty much better at everything than I am, so that'll be good. If not, you got a real treat ahead of you, which is we're going to have Dr. Richard Eglen do a presentation on some of the exciting things we have going on in life sciences. Please stay seated. The really good speaker is next.
Is it hard for you to say those words, "We're trying to cure cancer?
That's a really good question on why it's hard to say we want to cure cancer. We do. I think sometimes it's hard actually to think that you might actually succeed.
Patients that we're treating on this clinical trial have absolutely no other options left for them. These are patients who are unfortunately destined to die of their disease and in a fairly short amount of time.
Emily Whitehead, 554.
Emma is incredibly matter of fact about all of this stuff. This was a child who had had her leukemia come back twice. The parents were looking for a miracle. What we've learned how to do is train the immune system to recognize and then kill tumor cells. It's a procedure where we collect their T-cells, and they are infected with a virus that will genetically change them so that they will now see and react against their leukemia cells. We actually use the HIV virus to do that.
You're taking the HIV virus and infecting healthy cells with it to help kill cancer?
Yes. The virus has been engineered so that it can't cause disease anymore. It still retains the ability to reprogram the immune system so that it will now attack cancer cells. We call those modified immune cells serial killer cells. Each infused cell can kill more than 1,000 different tumor cells.
The reality is the dramatic responses of cancer to new treatments are very unusual. We need to make it clear when we talk to a family that it may not work. Emma was given her T-cell treatment, and within a few days she was very sick. She had breathing difficulties. She had blood pressure difficulties. We knew that she could not have gotten any sicker without actually dying. A remarkable thing happened. The T-cells were growing. They were starting to fight the cancer. Within hours, Emma's fever disappeared. It was like the calm after the storm. The clouds went away, and she woke up, and there was no leukemia. When that child survived, it was, of course, an amazing event.
Now, please welcome Dr. Richard Eglen, Vice President, General Manager, Corning Life Sciences.
Unprecedented results. Powerful stuff. I'm so proud to say that Corning Life Sciences provided the key products and technologies to that hospital, growing the cells that Emma needed for the treatment that saved her life. This is exactly the type of work that drives all of us at Corning, and much like Emma's life was saved, our products today enable scientists and doctors around the world to make breakthroughs that save the lives of countless others. That's no small thing. It's important, and it matters. In fact, our core expertise, cell culture, is rapidly becoming the preferred approach for medical breakthroughs. Today, the growing of cells is not only dramatically more relevant to diagnostics and drug discovery, but also for producing and delivering new medical breakthroughs. Cell-based drugs and therapies aren't just a more effective and efficient approach from a drug development standpoint.
Sometimes, as in Emma's case, they're the only approach. Let me tell you more about this shift from chemically produced drugs, think aspirin, to biologic drugs and therapies, which represent breakthrough treatments based on the products of cells or even the cells themselves, living biological ingredients. Cell therapy is the term we use when we talk about treating patients directly with this cellular material. This is what you just heard in our opening video, Emma's T-cells were reprogrammed to be capable of fighting cancer cells and then injected back into her body. Cell therapies utilize large amounts of patient cells, which are first isolated, then expanded, cultured in large numbers before being harvested and packaged for injection. Right now, 40% of all drugs in development are biologics. There's more on the way.
In 2018, in the U.S. alone, there were nearly four times as many clinical trials of cell and gene therapies as there were just three years prior. The FDA is accelerating approvals and is on track to approve 10 to 20 new cell and gene therapy products each year by 2025. Today, Corning is already a brand of choice in over 100,000 laboratories around the world. These new medical opportunities in biologics take cell culture beyond research and into clinical trials and production. Put another way, they're expanding our customer base, and they're driving global demand for our products, which are poised to become the industry standard for the scale-up, the development, and the packaging of these new drugs and therapies. I want to share with you a few examples of our game-changing, or perhaps more accurately, life-changing products that our customers rely on in this new environment.
Advanced cell culture products, like our Spheroid Microplate, enable scientists to develop better disease models that can lead to clinical candidates with greater efficacy, fewer side effects, and lower development costs. This is important because today, bringing a new drug to market takes on average 12 years at a cost of over $2 billion, and 86% fail to reach commercialization. This Spheroid Microplate, one of our thousands of life sciences products, provides our customers with simple, reproducible methods for growing cells in three dimensions, which, of course, more accurately represents how cells grow in your body.
Our technology is helping to move the industry from an era where 3D cell culture was something of a novelty, but technically challenging, to a full transition for many researchers who are now finding it not only accessible, but are generating superior results in cancer, testing drug toxicity, manufacturing vaccines, and developing new cell and gene therapies. Once these therapies are developed, scientists and biotech companies urgently need to scale up production, producing enormous quantities of cells and cellular materials to develop patient treatments, such as Emma's. Corning's viral production vessels, for example, our HYPERStack vessel, allow scientists to grow millions of cells in a very small footprint. Today, with the unprecedented rise in biologics production and the promise of cell and gene therapy, our customers are building entire factories for growing cells.
In fact, Corning's viral production vessels are now the industry-leading platforms for large-scale growth of adherent cells used for viral vectors in clinical trials and for bioproduction. We've invented exciting new technologies for this space, a testament to Corning's continuing ability to innovate ahead of the curve. As you may expect, the demand for these products is growing so quickly that we're now focused on building additional capacity to meet our customers' growing demand. This growth in biologics, gene therapy, and injectable drugs also creates a need for better glass packaging to store and protect these modern and expensive medicines. Regulators have recognized the need for increased quality in pharmaceutical packaging. This is to protect patients and to reduce drug recalls and shortages.
Our fundamental strengths are uniquely suited to the challenge, Corning's Valor Glass is being developed specifically to meet the need for more robust and higher quality pharmaceutical glass. Our remarkable solution helps protect patients and improves pharmaceutical manufacturing by substantially reducing glass particulates, resisting breakage, preventing cracks, and increasing manufacturing efficiency. As you can see, we're helping our customers do amazing things. Scientists use our products to discover new treatments for cancers, Alzheimer's disease, nervous system disorders, and cystic fibrosis. They're improving early assessment of drug toxicity. They're growing advanced cell structures outside of the body that allow for the study of diseases that currently have no cure. When it comes to harnessing the power of cells, we're enabling our customers to unlock more power every day, and we're right there with them. In 2018, our market access platform, Life Sciences vessels, delivered record performance.
Sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time, our growth is accelerating. As a market leader in cell culture and precision glass with science and manufacturing capabilities developed over decades, Corning is ideally positioned to innovate with other leaders to capture the potential of biologics and more specifically, cell and gene therapies. Remember, cells are now at the center of the life sciences industry. Helping customers grow cells is what we've done for 50 years, the time is now. These new therapies show significant promise for several diseases, many of which have never before been treatable. If you speak to the leaders of the companies involved in producing cell therapies, as I have, you can feel their sense of urgency. Remember Emma from the video?
Nearly 10 years ago, her parents were offered only one course of treatment, this was for their daughter's leukemia, it was chemotherapy. It didn't work. They fought hard to find an alternative, it's only after a diagnosis looked hopeless that they could get her the experimental therapy that saved her life. The sense of urgency is real because real lives are on the line, for many of our customers, the clock is ticking. Imagine a future where biologic drugs, cell therapies, and personalized treatments are the first course of action. To me, curing cancer seems within reach. This future does not seem so far away anymore. What we do at Corning Life Sciences helps change lives around the world in many ways, in some cases, in one of those meaningful ways possible. Thank you