GSK is consolidating its vaccine manufacturing operations to one site—located in Canada—amid what a spokesperson said is “decreasing demand” for egg-based flu shots.
GSK is shuttering its vaccine manufacturing facility in Germany, a move that will leave some 650 employees jobless.
“Following the review, we have taken a difficult decision to propose consolidating operations at one site,” a company spokesperson confirmed to BioSpace over email, referring to the pharma’s recently announced $2.5 billion savings push.
The pharma has chosen to retain its Canada plant while letting go of its Dresden campus, the spokesperson said. GSK continues to expect that it “can fully match anticipated future demand in a sustainable and competitive way,” the spokesperson added.
GSK’s vaccine business experienced an 8% year-on-year increase in vaccine sales in Q2. This was driven largely by its shingles shot Shingrix, which made £900 million ($1.2 billion) in the quarter, and the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine Arexvy, which surged more than 100% to hit £200 million ($270 million).
In July, GSK announced a sweeping cost-cutting campaign to save $2.5 billion over the next three years, an initiative that CEO Luke Miels at the time said would “simplify the organization” and help “reallocate capital and resources” into its late-stage pipeline. Miels confirmed that the cuts would include layoffs, though the pharma hasn’t specified how many employees will be affected in all.
In the weeks leading up to the announcement of the savings push, GSK took other steps to slim down. In early July, for instance, the pharma abandoned its neuro partner Alector after back-to-back disappointments, including a Phase 3 dementia fail in October 2025 and a mid-stage Alzheimer’s stumble in April. The companies first linked up in July 2021, with GSK fronting $700 million.
A few weeks after cutting Alector loose, GSK pulled the plug on its chronic cough drug camlipixant, which it got from the $2 billion takeover of Bellus Health, following mixed Phase 3 data. The pharma was running the late-stage CALM-1 and CALM-2 studies for camlipixant, with the former meeting its primary goal of lowering cough frequency, while the latter detected no benefit in this metric. Both CALM trials missed key secondary endpoints.
The pharma has also posted key wins of late and over the weekend reported positive Phase 3 data for its Hansoh Pharma-partnered risvutatug rezetecan, an investigational antibody-drug conjugate being tested for relapsed small cell lung cancer. And in July, GSK announced that its ROS1 blocker zidesamtinib—which it got from its $10.6 billion buyout of Nuvalent Bio—won FDA approval for certain types of advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
