Since Emma Walmsley took over leadership at Glaxo, expectations have been both high and hypercritical.
London, UK – Since Emma Walmsley took over leadership at GlaxoSmithKline, expectations have been both high and hypercritical, with a focus either on her mergers-and-acquisitions strategy or the company’s pipeline.
At the company’s second-quarter financial report in July 2017, Walmsley indicated the company planned to kill more than 30 preclinical and clinical programs and allocate 80 percent of its research-and-development budget to respiratory and HIV/infectious diseases. The company has three product divisions, Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. Walmsley indicated that her priority was for improvement in Pharmaceuticals, that the company needed to pull full value from recent and upcoming product launches, make improvements in its cost base, and strengthen its pipeline.
In addition to boosting its pipeline in respiratory and HIV/ID, it hopes to expand its presence in oncology and immuno-inflammation. Although some investors are worried about the company’s pipeline, Australia’s Financial Review recently said, “We view the concerns about the product pipeline as being overstated.”
The company released its 2017 financials today, citing sales growth across all three business divisions, with Pharmaceuticals reporting sales of 17.3 billion pounds, Vaccines 5.2 billion pounds and Consumer Healthcare 7.8 billion pounds. Walmsley said in a statement, “In 2017 GSK delivered encouraging results from across the company with sales growth in each of our three global businesses, an improved Group operating margin, Adjusted EPS growth of 4 percent (CER) and stronger free cash flow.”
In terms of the pipeline, Walmsley said, “We are focused on competing effectively across our current portfolio and delivering three new launches which bring significant benefits to patients: Trelegy Ellipta which provides three medicines in a single inhaler to treat COPD; Juluca, the first two-drug regimen, once-daily, single pill for HIV, helping to reduce the amount of medicines needed, and Shingrix, our new vaccine which represents a new standard for the prevention of shingles”
She went on to say, “Improving our Pharmaceuticals business remains our main priority and we are strengthening our pipeline with a focus on priority assets in two current therapy areas, Respiratory and HIV, and two potential areas, Oncology and Immuno-inflammation. We will provide a further update to investors at Q2 on our plans for R&D.”
In a video presentation, Luke Miels, GSK’s president, Global Pharmaceuticals, said, “Our job now is to maximize our current portfolio and successfully deliver the three major other opportunities. Our vaccine Shingrix for shingles, Nucala for severe asthma and Trelegy Ellipta in COPD. I want to briefly mention more about each of these. First, our new vaccine Shringrix. It represents a new standard of prevention of shingles with over 90 percent efficacy. We are very pleased to have the preferential recommendation from the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is highly significant and gives us a target of 100 million patients in the U.S. alone for the vaccine.”
Speaking of Nucala, he said, “Nucala has demonstrated strong and consistent efficacy in reducing exacerbations, and we believe there is significant potential for growth given the large under-treated population in asthma that might benefit from such an interesting medicine. We will be launching Nucala for EGPA (eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis) shortly and pending FDA approval, COPD before year end. And I expect Nucala to become one of the largest contributors to our respiratory portfolio by 2020.”
Trelegy, Miels says, “has demonstrated superiority in COPD care over previous therapies with unprecedented reductions in exacerbations. To sum up, I believe we have a significant opportunity in 2018 and beyond to successfully deliver these unprecedented new products to a large number of patients.”
