Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome all of you and call to order our 2018 annual meeting of the stockholders of Thermo Fisher Scientific. I'm Jim Manzi, your Chairman. I'd like to introduce eight of our outside Directors who are here. Mr. Nelson Chai, Dr. Martin Harris, Dr. Tyler Jacks, Ms. Judy Lewent, Thomas Lynch, Mr. Lars Sørensen, Mr. Scott Sperling, and Ms. Elaine Ullian, all of whom are present here today. We'll first conduct the formal portion of the meeting of stockholders, then Marc Casper, our Chief Executive Officer, will then update you on the company's business, followed by time for general questions and discussion. The format allows us to complete our formal business and then move on to matters of general interest.
Sharon Briansky, our Secretary, will now introduce the company's auditors, and the Inspector of Election will review the procedures for the annual meeting, report on the quorum for the meeting, and then present the voting proposals and results. Ms. Briansky will file the proof of notice of this within the minutes. Sharon.
Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to introduce the representatives of our auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are attending today's meeting, Michael Papetti and Scott Godsell. They're available to answer any questions you may have regarding the financial statements of the company. I'd also like to introduce our company's Inspector of Election, Thomas Watt from Broadridge, who has taken the oath of office, and I'll review the meeting protocol for today's meeting. As Jim mentioned, time for questions has been reserved for after Marc's remarks. If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. When you're recognized by a company official, please stand, state your name, your status as a stockholder, and your affiliation. Please direct your question to the speaker. Please be considerate of others.
Do not interrupt them, and be as brief as possible with your questions. In the interest of fairness to all stockholders and in order to cover all topics of interest, access to any microphones may be limited on any matter that the Chairman determines has become repetitive or has taken longer than five minutes. As a courtesy to other stockholders, matters of individual concern or not of general concern to stockholders should be taken up after the meeting with company representatives. This meeting is being webcast live and will be archived on our website, thermofisher.com, through June 23rd, 2018. To reach a replay of the meeting on our website, click on About Us, then Investors, Webcasts and Presentations.
Various remarks that we may make at today's meeting about the company's future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor Provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2018, under the caption Risk Factors, which is on file with the SEC. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our estimates change. Therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today. During this meeting, we will be referring to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with GAAP.
The non-GAAP financial measures of our results of operations referred to at this meeting are not meant to be considered superior to or a substitute for our results of operations prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available under the heading GAAP, non-GAAP Reconciliation and Financial Package in the Investors section of our website at thermofisher.com. As indicated in the notice of meeting that was mailed to all stockholders, we're here today to consider the following business items: election of directors for a one-year term expiring at the next annual meeting of stockholders, or until his or her successor has been duly elected and qualified, or until his or her earlier resignation, death, or removal. An advisory vote on executive compensation. Ratification of the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent auditors for 2018.
We'll consider each item in turn in the same order that they appear in the notice of meeting. The polls for each matter will open when the matter is called to a vote and will remain open until we announce that the polls are closed. No ballots or proxies or revocations of, or changes to ballots or proxies will be accepted after the polls are closed. I will announce the results of the voting on each matter following the tabulation of the voting. Voting at today's annual meeting is by proxy. However, if anyone has not voted their shares of the company and would like to do so now, or has voted their shares but wishes to revoke their proxy or change their vote, please raise your hand and we'll provide you with a ballot. 89.62%. Oh, yes?
I didn't get a ballot.
You did not get a ballot yet?
No.
Okay. We can get one to you. Okay. We'll just pause for a minute.
Do we have the capacity to get her a ballot?
Yeah.
Yeah. I actually have two accounts.
Okay. 89.62% of the shares of the company thus far, outstanding on the record date, are represented here today or in person, or through representation by proxy, and that constitutes a quorum for the transaction of business at today's meeting. Let's go ahead, and we can get going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We will certainly incorporate your votes as you submit them, but let me report on the voting that we have, which does represent a quorum for the meeting. The first matter to be voted is on the election of directors. The 11 nominees for election are Marc Casper, Nelson Chai, C. Martin Harris, Tyler Jacks, Judy Lewent, Thomas Lynch, myself, Jim Manzi, Lars Sørensen, Scott Sperling, Elaine Ullian, and Dion Weisler. Is there any discussion on this matter before we proceed to the vote? We'll now proceed to the vote, and anyone voting in person should complete the portion of the ballot, and please submit it when you're done. On the advisory vote on executive compensation, the next matter to be voted on is on executive compensation. Is there discussion on this item? We'll proceed to the vote here.
Again, please submit your vote so we can incorporate them into our final tally. Finally, the final matter is to be voted on is the ratification of the selection of PwC LLP as the company's independent auditors for the current fiscal year. Any discussion on this matter before we proceed to the vote? Ma'am, are you-
I'm fine.
Okay. Why don't we? Do you want to submit?
Thank you. Concerning the tabulation of votes, your votes will be included in our final tally.
This includes the business items on the agenda for this annual meeting. The polls are now closed. I'll ask Ms. Briansky to collect the ballots and tabulate the votes, we now have a preliminary report of the results of the meeting, which I will ask Ms. Briansky to read.
The preliminary tally of proxies shows that each of the nominees for director received a majority of the votes cast by stockholders entitled to vote at the meeting. The advisory vote on executive compensation received more than the affirmative vote of a majority of the shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting and voting affirmatively or negatively on the matter. The management proposal to ratify the audit committee's selection of PwC as the company's independent auditors for 2018 received more than the affirmative vote of a majority of shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting and voting affirmatively or negatively on the matter. Mr. Chairman, this completes my voting report.
Thank you, Sharon. I declare that the nominees for director for the one-year term expiring in 2019 of Thermo Fisher Scientific have been elected, that the advisory vote proposal on executive compensation has been approved, and the proposal to ratify the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditors for 2018 has also been approved. The final vote results will be published in a current report on a Form 8-K and filed by the company with the SEC. This concludes the formal portion of our meeting. I'd now like to invite Marc Casper, our CEO, to give you a state of our company, as it were, and our prospects for the future. Thanks, Marc. Thanks, Sharon.
Thank you.
Jim, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. It is my pleasure to give you an update on the progress that we've made at Thermo Fisher Scientific. I'd like to thank all of our shareholders for joining us this afternoon, and we will leave time for questions and discussion after a brief presentation. From a high level, we continue to be focused on advancing our position as the unrivaled leader in our industry, serving the life sciences tools, diagnostics, and contract manufacturing and development of pharmaceuticals. When you look at the company today, we are the world leader in serving science. We have strong brands, well known by our customers around the world, and they know us for our industry-leading scale and our unmatched depth of capabilities. When you think about the scale that we have, we have over 70,000 colleagues working around the world.
We spend $1 billion of investment on research and development each year. We are known for those depth of capabilities that we have as well, which is around having leading innovative technologies
Helping our customers achieve their own productivity goals, our deep applications expertise, and a wide range of comprehensive services offering, which all helps our customers achieve their mission. All of this is powered by our PPI business system, which makes the company more efficient and more effective, and ultimately, as competitive as we possibly can be. Everything we do starts with our mission. We enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer, and our customers are doing incredibly important work in society, and we play a key role in supporting those efforts and enabling those efforts. This mission has allowed us to attract the very best and brightest to our company because of the passion they have to make in society.
Some examples of how we're making that impact with our customers from a healthier perspective, our technologies were used by Novartis in bringing out the first FDA-approved CAR T therapy for leukemia for both pediatric and young adults. A second example from a cleaner perspective is how our chromatography systems are used to ensure that there's not pesticides in beverages, water, and in the food supply. From a safer perspective, with the challenges of the opioid crisis in the U.S., our TruNarc analyzers are used by law enforcement to actually be able to determine what a substance is without having to come in contact with the substance, so that it ensures law enforcement safety, are different examples of how we enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. There are many more examples every day about how we work with our customers.
We have four business segments. They complement each other and they strengthen our overall competitive position. On a pro forma basis, we have about $23 billion in revenue. The pro forma is to include the acquisition of Patheon on a full year basis. When you look at our segments, Analytical Instruments, really using our technologies to solve some of the most complex challenges in the world. Life Science Solutions, we have a leading portfolio that's used for discovery, diagnostics, and bioproduction. Specialty Diagnostics, leading positions in attractive niche diagnostic segments. Our largest segment, Lab Products and Services, where we help improve laboratory productivity and provide end-to-end pharmaceutical services for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. We acquired Patheon in August of 2017, $7 billion acquisition, and I wanted to give you a brief update on the progress that we're making.
The rationale for the acquisition was to build on the long-term capabilities we had in this market segment in our clinical trials business, and Patheon expanded those capabilities to include an end-to-end offering from drug development, from product and substance through clinical trials, and ultimately to commercial scale-up. We believe that we're able to accelerate the growth of this business because of the access we have to the customer base. It's about nine months since the close of the transaction, and the integration is going extraordinarily well. We're leveraging our experiences and integration to make sure that we retain our talent and we keep our talent focused on delivering performance. As we speak today, our PPI business system is well adopted within the legacy Patheon business. The cost and revenue synergies are on track, and we're making great progress in growing the business at a high rate.
It's early days yet, much to be done, but the integration is going very smoothly and we're on track to deliver strong returns for our shareholders. We have a well-executed growth strategy and it positions us for a bright future. Our strategy is focused on high impact innovation, the benefits of our scale in the high growth and emerging markets, and our unique customer value proposition. This combination of a growth strategy, which we've been executing for many years, has allowed to grow the company at a high rate. We expect over the next few year period to continue to be able to grow organically between 4% and 6% over the next three-year period. When you look at our financial track record, the same chart that I showed last year, but adding on the 2017 results, adding on another year.
We were able to deliver top-line growth at an average of 10% growth. We turned that into 15% growth in adjusted earnings per share. From a keep free cash flow perspective, a 16% average growth rate since 2011 at $3.5 billion of free cash flow. We have a bright future. We introduced our vision for 2030 in January. The reason we did it now, it's just 12 years away, is that at the beginning of this decade, we introduced our vision for 2020. It felt we were getting very close to the end of the decade, and we wanted to make sure that our colleagues are focused on the long term and not just the short term.
The vision has been very well received. Really, the concept is giving our colleagues a focus on what should we be working on every day to make sure that we're successful long term. We'll continue our journey to be one of the world's most admired companies, making sure we have a great team that's passionate about serving our customers. We'll be very committed, as we have in the past, to innovation, and of course, focused on delivering an exceptional level of profitability and financial track record. With that, I welcome your questions, comments, anything that would be useful. If you just raise your hands, we're happy to bring a microphone around. Yes. Give you one second for the microphone.
I'm here.
There's folks on the west coast
Could you tell us where growth would come from going down to 2030 relative to domestic versus overseas?
Yeah. The question is, as we look out over the next decade plus, how would we see the growth coming domestic versus outside of the United States? A great question. About half of our business today comes out of the United States, and about half of our business comes from other countries. If you look at the average rates of growth that we've experienced outside the U.S., it's a little bit faster than it is in the United States. If you project out the mix over the course of the next decade, it's something around 40%-45% will be domestic at the end of 2030, and 55%-60% will be outside the United States, just based on the accelerated growth. Not a commitment to one versus the other, but just sort of the market opportunity.
Thank you.
You're welcome. Other questions? Okay. We'll make ourselves available after the meeting as well. Thank you for the interest. We look forward to updating you on our progress quarterly, during our earnings calls. With that, I'll turn the call back over to our Chairman, Jim Manzi. Thanks.
Thank you, Marc. Thank you all for attending today's meeting. If there is nothing further to come before the meeting, I'll declare it adjourned. Thank you all.