Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Thermo Fisher Scientific Incorporation Annual Meeting. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mark Casper. Sir, you may begin.
Good afternoon and welcome to the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Thermo Fisher Scientific. I am Mark Casper, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Thermo Fisher, and I will be presiding over this meeting. I welcome you and call the meeting to order.
Due to
the public health impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic and to support the health and well-being of our shareholders, employees and communities, this year, we are holding our Annual Meeting in an all virtual format and are pleased to have everyone join this live webcast. We have designed this meeting to provide shareholders the same rights and opportunities to participate as they would at an in person meeting. Before we get to the formal business of the meeting, I would like to make some introductions. Joining us at the meeting today are 11 of our outside directors, Nelson Choe, Martin Harris, Tyler Jacks, Judy Lewent, Thomas Lynch, Jim Manzi, James Mullen, Laura Sorensen, Deborah Spahr, Scott Sperling, Dion Weisler. I would also like to introduce Michael Braunstein, a representative from PricewaterhouseCoopers, our independent registered public accounting firm and Terrence Hassett, a representative from Broadridge, who has been appointed to act as Inspector of the election.
I will now turn the meeting over to Sharon Bryansky, our secretary, who will conduct the formal part of the meeting.
Thank you, Mark. In order to conduct an orderly meeting, I call your attention to the rules of conduct posted on the virtual meeting website, which include information about participating in the meeting, including asking questions. Please note that various 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 the Risk Factors section of our most recent quarterly report on Form 10 Q, which is on file with the SEC. In addition, these forward looking statements represent the company's expectations only as of today.
While the company may elect to update these forward looking statements, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. Any forward looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the company's estimates or views as of any date subsequent to today. During this meeting, we will be referring to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP. The non GAAP financial measures of Thermo Fisher's results of operations referred to at this meeting are not meant to be considered superior to or a substitute for Thermo Fisher's 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, www.thermofisher.com.
I have received an affidavit from Broadridge certifying that the notice of the annual meeting and proxy statement were sent to all shareholders of record as of March 27, 2020, a copy of which will be included in the minutes of the meeting. Our first order of business is to determine whether the shares represented at this meeting, either in person via this virtual meeting or by proxy, are sufficient to constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. In excess of a majority of the shares of the company outstanding on the record date, March 27, 2020, are represented here today in person or through representation by proxy and that constitutes a quorum for the transaction of business at today's meeting. Turning now to the items to be voted on at this meeting. As indicated in the notice of meeting and accompanying documents that were made available to shareholders, the first matter to be voted on is the election of 12 directors to serve until the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders and until their successors are duly elected and qualified.
The 12 nominees for election are Mark Casper, Nelson Che, Martin Harris, Tyler Jacks, Judy Lewent, Thomas Lynch, Jim Manzi, James Mullen, Lars Sorensen, Deborah Spahr, Scott Sperling and Dion Weisler. The next matter to be voted upon is the advisory vote to approve executive compensation. The proxy statement for this meeting contains the text of the resolution that shareholders are asked to approve. The final matter to be voted on is the ratification of the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's registered public accounting firm for the current fiscal year. If there are any questions on the proposals, they may be submitted on the virtual meeting website.
If asking a question, please also include your name and affiliation to the company. As a reminder, there will also be time after Mark's presentation for general Q and A and any questions from shareholders received during the meeting that we don't have time to answer will be posted and answered on our website as soon as practicable following the meeting. I see that the questions that have come in are not related to procedure on the formal matters. So I will turn it back over to Mark. We will have an opportunity to vote now quickly and then pause and then Mark will close the polls.
So we'll take our pause now.
Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, the business items on the agenda for this meeting are complete and the polls are closed. We have the preliminary report of the results of the meeting and they are as follows. Each of the nominees for director has been elected as a director. The advisory resolution approving executive compensation has been approved. The appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been ratified.
The final vote results will be included in the Form 8 ks that will be filed within 4 business days after this meeting. This concludes the formal part of our meeting. I will now give you an update on the company's progress, following which we'll use our remaining available time to answer questions from our shareholders.
Scientific as it is today. We have revenues of over $25,000,000,000 75,000 amazing colleagues and we invest over $1,000,000,000 a year in R and D to bring out highly relevant innovative new products. In our industry, we have leading scale and unmatched depth of capabilities and this is powered by our practical process improvement business system. Our customers know us for the very strong brands that we have. We are the world leader in serving science.
We have a proven formula for long term success. Our growth strategy, which you're familiar with, is really driven by 3 things: high impact innovation scale in high growth and emerging markets and our unique customer value proposition, which really makes a difference in our customer success. Our PPI business system drives productivity, quality and customer allegiance across the company, and we complement that with our capital deployment strategy, which is a blend of strategic M and A and return of capital. This formula has allowed us to consistently deliver strong EPS growth over the long term. 2019 was another successful year of execution.
Financially, we grew our revenues 5% to $25,500,000,000 We grew our adjusted EPS by 11% to $12.35 per share and our free cash flow grew by 6% to $4,100,000,000 It was also another excellent year of high impact innovation. We had a steady stream of relevant products launched throughout the year ranging from our mass spectrometers to our sequencers to qPCR instruments and the next generation of our cryo electron microscope. In our high growth and emerging markets, our scale is a unique benefit. It was another great year of growth in China. We grew 13% organically, and we continuously are investing to meet the needs across Asia Pacific, whether it's our new customer solution center that we opened up in Shanghai or those that we opened up in India and South Korea.
And we continue to expand our local facilities, including our clinical trials operation in Suzhou. The next aspect of our growth strategy is our unique value proposition for our customers. In this example, a focus on pharma and biotech. We completed our integration of Patheon, the acquisition that we consummated in 2017 and continue to invest in that business and have been very successful in strengthening our offering. That investment approach has been based on 3 prongs, expanding our internal capabilities, the construction project you see here is the expansion of our St.
Louis, Missouri Biologics drug substance facility. We've also done targeted M and A, expanding our capabilities through the acquisition of world class facilities from our pharma customers. We acquired GSK's active pharmaceutical ingredient facility in October year and we've added new capabilities Brammer Bio added viral vector services to our offering. As we sit here in May, I also thought I'd give you a brief update on what's going on in 2020 and how we continue to strengthen our industry leadership. Because we're living in a COVID-nineteen world, I wanted to remind you of the principles that we're using to manage through the pandemic.
They're threefold. 1, to ensure the safety of our colleagues 2, to maintain our business continuity to enable and support our customers and third, to manage the company appropriately to position ourselves for an even brighter future. We've been very engaged in responding to COVID-nineteen and the societal response. As you know, our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. And here are some of the ways that we are enabling a response to the COVID-nineteen pandemic.
From a healthier perspective, we developed the FDA emergency use authorization COVID-nineteen testing kit and got approval in mid March and have been shipping the product globally in terms of testing for the pandemic. We're also supporting our pharma and biotech customers in developing and producing therapies and vaccines. From a cleaner perspective, our chemicals facilities have shifted resources to make hand sanitizer for colleagues and our customers. And from a safer perspective, our research and safety market channel and our healthcare market channel have been providing personal protective equipment or PPE to those on the front line. We've been responding aggressively to helping our customers address the pandemic.
We also announced the acquisition of QIAGEN earlier this year. It will strengthen our unique value proposition. QIAGEN is a leading provider of molecular diagnostics and sample preparation technologies and has $1,500,000,000 of revenue and 5,100 colleagues that we look forward to welcoming to Thermo Fisher next year. When you look at the business from a revenue perspective, it has a highly consumables oriented product mix with 89% of its revenue coming from consumables and a very global balance to its revenue base. The strategic rationale for QIAGEN is based on the following approaches.
1st, it will expand our specialty diagnostics capability with attractive molecular diagnostic capabilities, including infectious disease testing. It complements our leading life sciences offering. It provides an opportunity for us to leverage our industry leading capabilities and R and D expertise to accelerate innovation and address emerging healthcare needs. We'll be able to leverage our extensive commercial reach to be able to expand customer access to QIAGEN's product portfolio. And finally, it delivers attractive financial benefits and create shareholder value by leveraging our PPI business system, including our proven integration approach.
As you know, Thermo Fisher is committed to doing business the right way. The way we operate our company is in alignment with our mission and we approach it in a such a way that we make sure that our focus is on maintaining our operational integrity with the proper business practices, that we create bright exciting careers for our colleagues, that we give back to our communities and that we manage the company from an environmental perspective where we continually focus on minimizing our own footprint on the environment. Our investments create long term value and ensure a sustainable future for all of our stakeholders. Let me focus on the last slide, which is where we're going. Our vision for 2,030, something you've seen over the last couple of years.
These are the elements of our vision. We'll continue our focus on being the unrivaled leader in serving science and become one of the world's most admired companies. We'll leverage the great team that we have that brings diverse perspectives, collaborative energy and a passion to excel every day. We'll focus on our customers, we'll have our unwavering commitment to innovation and we'll continue to deliver exceptional track record of consistently strong financial results. With that, I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. There are questions that have been posted online. I'll read the questions and then Mark will respond. Our first question is, how are sales of QuantStudio and Reagents for COVID improving corporate performance?
Thank you for the question. So those products are related to our COVID-nineteen PCR testing, the molecular testing that society has been using to respond to the virus so that a doctor can know whether a patient or a person has the virus actively. And we have gotten the FDA emergency use authorization in mid March. We got authorizations in almost 50 other countries around the world and we have helped society respond in a meaningful fashion to the pandemic. And that's been something that all of our colleagues around the company are very proud of the role and one of the many ways that we're responding to society's response to the pandemic.
Thank you. The next question has a statement at the beginning from the Carpenters Union, so I'll read that now. Mr. Chairman, the Carpenter Union Pension Funds with combined assets of $70,000,000,000 have a collective ownership position of 400 and 12,500 shares of the company's common stock. As long term investors, we commend senior management and the Board for its effective execution of the company's long term strategic plan and an executive compensation plan to drive that effective implementation.
In the Q1, the company spent $1,500,000,000 on share repurchases as part of a recently authorized $2,500,000,000 share repurchase program. What factors will the Board consider in determining when it is appropriate to engage in further share repurchases?
I'd like to thank the Carpenters Union for their long standing shareholding in the company and often attending the meetings live. In terms of our capital deployment strategy, as you may recall, we have a blend of return of capital to our shareholders, which is both through repurchases and dividends, as well as M and A to continue to further advance the company's strategy. Roughly 2 thirds of our capital is deployed towards M and A and roughly a third of our capital is deployed towards return of capital. Early in the year, we, as you mentioned, we purchased $1,500,000,000 worth of shares. Subsequent to that, in early March, we announced the acquisition of QIAGEN, as I mentioned in the update.
We're very excited about that. And certainly, for the balance of this year, our capital deployment focus will be on working through the process to complete that acquisition and close that acquisition in the first half of twenty twenty one. And then in the future, we'll certainly continue to look at the blend of repurchases, dividends and further M and A going forward. So thank you for the question.
Our next question is, given sales in China, are there issues with forced transfer of Thermo Fisher intellectual property?
Thank you for the question. We have had a long standing business and relationship in China that has grown significantly over the years. We entered the Chinese market about 40 years ago. Today, it is our 2nd largest market after the United States. It represents about 11% of our revenue and it has been an area because of how we supported the Chinese societal priorities of environmental protection, a safer food supply, expansion of healthcare within the Chinese society, we've had good relationships and a good experiences expanding our business there.
So we have not had a forced transfer of intellectual property. It's not something that we've experienced.
So there are no additional questions. And with that, turn it back over to you, Mark.
Sharon, thank you. I would like to thank all of you for attending today's meeting. On behalf of the customers that we serve and all of my colleagues, I'd like to thank you for your investment in Thermo Fisher. The 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders is now adjourned.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.