Feb 1 (Reuters) - GSK on Wednesday beat fourth-quarter profit and sales forecasts helped by sales of its blockbuster shingles vaccine Shingrix.
The London-listed drugmaker, which executed a long-scripted overhaul with the spinoff of its consumer health unit last July, reported adjusted profit down 6% to 25.8 pence per share on sales down 3% at about 7.4 billion pounds ($9.11 billion) at constant currency rates.
That beat the 21.2 pence per share on sales of about 7.1 billion pounds expected by analysts in a company-compiled consensus.
Shingrix generated 769 million pounds over the quarter, topping the 748 million in the GSK-compiled consensus estimates.
In November, GSK forecast a full-year 2022 adjusted operating profit up by 15% to 17% on sales up 8% to 10%, excluding any contributions from its COVID-19 solutions business at constant exchange rates.
GSK, now solely focused on vaccines and medicines, on Wednesday forecast 2023 adjusted operating profit to climb by 10% to 12% on sales up 6% to 8%.
The company said that it also does not expect any significant COVID-19 pandemic-related sales in 2023, after the its COVID solutions unit generated 2.4 billion pounds last year.
The unit is primarily led by the company's therapy Xevudy, that once generated billions in sales. It has since fallen out of favour in the arsenal of COVID-19 therapies, on the basis that Omicron and the variant's latest offshoots have likely rendered it obsolete.
CEO Emma Walmsley said in a statement that the company was working on bolstering its pipeline, which she said is focused on infectious disease, and cited its potential RSV vaccine.
But some analysts have raised concerns about the company's long-term future, some of GSK's best-selling HIV drugs are set to lose patent protection close to the end of the decade.
"They don’t really have a pharma asset (outside of HIV) at the moment that holds the business together," Michael Leuchten, managing director for equity research at UBS told Reuters on Tuesday.
"They need to go out and find something, at this point not clear where they go."
GSK's shares have lagged most of its rivals in recent years. The stock is down about 20% since January 2020, while rival AstraZeneca's stock has leapt more than 40% over the same period.
($1 = 0.8120 pounds)
Comments