Having hit a six-year high prior to its midday third-quarter results, shares in pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithkine (GSK) pared their earlier gains but still traded up 1.4% to £17.65 after it beat expectations and upgraded its full year earnings per share guidance.
Third-quarter revenues to 30 September were up 11% in constant currencies to £9.4bn while operating profits rose 3% to £2.2bn.
The company raised its earnings per share guidance to a flat performance for the full year, up from previous guidance of minus 3% to minus 5% in July, while maintaining the dividend at 80p per share.
Chief executive Emma Walmsley said, ‘This quarter we have continued to strengthen our pipeline and have advanced assets in Respiratory, HIV and notably Oncology, where we are on track to file three innovative medicines by year end following positive pivotal trial data.’
VACCINES AND ASTHMA DRUGS DRIVE SALES
Vaccines continued to be the stand-out division, driven by strong growth in sales of the company’s Shingles treatment called Shingrix, up 76% to £535m which was way above analysts’ forecasts of £464m.
Respiratory revenues grew by 19% on growth of the company’s asthma drugs Trelegy Ellipta and Nucala offset by the loss of exclusivity on its biggest selling drug Advair.
Consumer Healthcare, which is being carved out and merged with US pharma giant Pfizer’s Consumer division, saw underlying growth of 3%.
Net cash flow from operations rose 21% to £2.5bn and free-cash flow grew 25% to £1.9bn. Earnings per share for the quarter were 31.4p, up 9%.
