During the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, we made the decision to exit the Resolution Bioscience business within our diagnostics and genomics segment. In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, we entered into an agreement to divest the Resolution Bioscience business for $50 million.

We remain committed to invest significantly in research and development and have focused our development efforts on key strategic opportunities to align our business with available markets and position ourselves to capture market share.

In January 2023, we announced that we will be investing approximately $725 million to further expand our manufacturing capacity for production of nucleic acid based therapeutics in Frederick, Colorado.

We have implemented multiple strategic initiatives across our businesses to adjust our cost structure, and we may engage in similar activities in the future. These strategic initiatives and our regular ongoing cost reduction activities may distract management.

Looking forward, we continue to be focused on improving our customers' experience, differentiating product solutions and productivity.

In December 2023, we decided to re-organize our operating segments and move our cell analysis business, which currently is included in our life science and applied markets segment, to our diagnostics and genomics operating segment.

Our business is sensitive to negative changes in general economic conditions, both inside and outside the United States. Slower global economic growth, increasing interest rates, inflationary pressures, instability and uncertainty in the markets in which we operate may adversely impact our business.

Demand for some of our products and services depends on the capital spending policies of our customers, research and development budgets and on government funding policies.

Because we sell our products worldwide, our business is subject to risks associated with doing business internationally. Accordingly, our future results could be harmed by a variety of factors, including interruption to transportation flows, ongoing instability, changes in trade relationships, and impact of public health crises.

The markets for analytical instruments in which we compete are characterized by evolving industry standards and intense competition. Our principal competitors in the life sciences and applied markets arena include: Danaher Corporation, PerkinElmer Inc., Shimadzu Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Waters Corporation.

Our principal competitors in the diagnostics and genomics arena include: Abbott Laboratories, Affymetrix, Inc., a division of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Illumina, Inc., Leica Biosystems, Inc., a division of Danaher Corporation, Roche Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., a member of the Roche Group, Avecia, a division of Nitto Denko and Twist Bioscience Corporation.

Our principal competitors in the services arena include many of our competitors from the instrument business such as: Danaher Corporation, PerkinElmer Inc., Shimadzu Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Waters Corporation, as well as numerous niche service providers.

We have consolidated, and may further consolidate, our manufacturing operations to certain of our plants to achieve efficiencies and gross margin improvements.

As part of our efforts to streamline operations and to manage costs, we outsource aspects of our manufacturing processes and other functions and continue to evaluate additional outsourcing.

If we are unable to successfully manage the consolidation and streamlining of our manufacturing operations, we may not achieve desired efficiencies, and our ability to deliver products to our customers could be disrupted.

We anticipate that we will continue to have significant research and development expenditures in order to maintain our competitive position with a continuing flow of innovative, high-quality products and services.

Our research and development efforts focus on potential new products and product improvements covering a wide variety of technologies, none of which is individually significant to our operations.

Agilent Technologies Research Laboratories (“Agilent Labs”) is our central research organization based in Santa Clara, California. Agilent Labs create competitive advantage through high-impact technology, driving market leadership and growth in our core businesses and expanding Agilent's footprint into adjacent markets.

On January 9, 2023, we announced that our board of directors had approved a share repurchase program (the “2023 repurchase program”) designed, among other things, to reduce or eliminate dilution resulting from issuance of stock.

Since the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, we have paid a quarterly dividend on our common stock. The timing, declaration, amount and payment of any future dividends fall within the discretion of our Board of Directors.

These continued investments in property plant and equipment are primarily due to the planned expansion of our nucleic acid solutions production facility in Frederick, Colorado.

In 2021, we committed to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. As part of our climate action plan, we have established near and long-term emission reduction targets to limit planetary warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

We value diversity at all levels and continue to focus on extending our diversity and inclusion initiatives across our entire workforce, from providing managers transparency of their workforce pay equity to working with managers to develop strategies for building diverse teams.

Each year our employees throughout the world devote thousands of volunteer hours to community service activities. Our employees may take up to six days of paid time off each year for volunteer activities with charities and organizations.

The life sciences and applied markets business is susceptible to seasonality in its orders and revenues primarily related to U.S. and foreign government budgets, chemicals and advanced materials and environmental customers and large pharmaceutical company budgets.

Because we sell our products worldwide, our business is subject to risks associated with doing business internationally. We anticipate that revenue from international operations will continue to represent a majority of our total revenue.

Our global operations expose us to risks associated with public health crises, including epidemics and pandemics such as COVID-19. For example, the recent global spread of COVID-19 had an adverse impact on our operations, sales and delivery and supply chains.