While sales for most of GSK’s shots slumped as vaccine skepticism continues to climb in the U.S., Shingrix jumped 20% to almost $1.4 billion in the first quarter, emerging as the pharma’s top-selling product.
Faced with mounting skepticism in its biggest market, a slight tweak in its shingles vaccine commercialization strategy has allowed GSK to push sales past analyst expectations.
“We have shifted the strategy on Shingrix to concentrate more on comorbid patients,” CEO Luke Miels told reporters during a media call Wednesday morning to present the pharma’s first quarter earnings. Miels is referring here to patients with co-occurring diseases or conditions, such as diabetes or heart problems, that could put them at greater risk of shingles.
In Q1, Shingrix sales jumped 20% worldwide to bring in £1.03 billion, or nearly $1.4 billion—emerging as GSK’s top-selling product. Analysts had forecasted £851 million ($1.15 billion) in Q1 Shingrix sales, according to Reuters.
Much of Shingrix’s growth came from Europe, where uptake surged 51% year-on-year to £461 million ($622.74 million). The U.S. also returned a positive trend for Shingrix in the first quarter, with a 12% increase in revenue to £389 million ($525.5 million).
Aside from GSK’s flu shot—which had a minor impact on the pharma’s topline with £10 million ($13.5 million) in revenue—Shingrix was the pharma’s only vaccine franchise that grew year-on-year. Elsewhere, the company’s respiratory syncytial virus shot Arexvy, plunged 18% to £65 million ($87.81 million), while its meningitis immunization slid 3% to £335 million ($452 million).
Taken together, sales for all of GSK’s other pediatric and adult vaccines dropped 9% from Q1 2025.
Vaccines have become a hot-button issue in the U.S. over the last year-and-a-half. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, has enacted a slew of policy changes that have made shots more difficult to access for many Americans. Kennedy’s rhetoric, too, has fomented distrust in the science behind immunization.
Like GSK, other vaccine developers have felt the squeeze of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine campaign. At the health department, “It’s a different world when you start discussing vaccines,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said at the World Economic Forum in January. “There’s almost like a religion there.” Pfizer has a deep vaccine portfolio that includes its COVID-19 shot Comirnaty.
During Wednesday’s call, GSK CFO Julie Brown said, “We’re firm believers that there’s no better return on investment than vaccines.” The healthcare system could avoid “a massive amount” of spending “if people were appropriately vaccinated,” she added.
In the first quarter, GSK’s total sales hit £7.6 billion ($10.27 billion), a 5% year-on-year increase. Aside from Shingrix, the company’s Specialty Medicines portfolio drove its positive topline performance, led by the HIV pill Dovato, which surged 20% to bring in £666 million (almost $900 million). Other top-performers for GSK included the asthma biologic Nucala (£484 million or around $653.8 million) and the inhaler Trelegy Ellipta (£646 million or roughly $873 million).
On the pipeline front, GSK revealed it has discontinued the development of the STING agonist XMT-2056, an investigational antibody-drug conjugate it picked up in a 2022 deal with Mersana Therapeutics. The pharma at the time fronted $100 million for an option to advance XMT-2056, and placed up to $1.36 billion on the line in milestones. XMT-2056 was in Phase 1 development for cancer, according to GSK’s presentation on Wednesday.
