GSK shares dive as weaker sales and mounting costs unnerve investors

Shares in GSK slid on Wednesday despite the UK drugmaker reporting better-than-expected financial results, as investors were unnerved by weaker vaccine sales, restructuring charges and its overall outlook.

Britain’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company reported a 19% decline in pre-tax profit to £1.9bn in the July to September quarter and £318m of restructuring charges, with more to come.

Shares dived as much as 7% at one point on Wednesday, and despite later paring back to a 5.5% drop, it remained the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip businesses.

Luke Miels, who took over from Emma Walmsley as chief executive of GSK in January, has announced a number of acquisitions, including a £7.9bn US cancer specialist, and a major cost saving programme in July to speed up drug development.

GSK said turnover in the third quarter rose 5% at constant currency rates to £8.9bn, thanks to strong sales of its HIV, cancer and lupus medications.

However, vaccine sales dipped 2% to £2.6bn, with sharp declines for the shingles shot Shingrix, down 5%, and the RSV vaccine Arexvy, down 24%, while sales of meningitis vaccines rose 12%.

Investors are also worried about the looming patent cliff for its blockbuster HIV drug dolutegravir. It will lose patent protection towards the end of the decade, which means other drugmakers can make cheaper, generic versions.

The company has set a goal of generating more than £40bn in total annual revenue by 2031 as it rebuilds its cancer business.

Miels said GSK was slightly ahead on its three-year cost reduction plan to save £1.9bn a year, which involves simplifying operations to invest more in research & development (R&D). The restructuring will cost the company £2.4bn, and most of these charges will come this year and next.

The impact on the UK is “relatively limited,” Miels said, with some job cuts at its headquarters in central London, affecting support roles. “You never want headquarters to be too big; I want people on the bench in the lab.”

GSK is also reorganising its vaccine business in Belgium, with increased use of digital tools and automation expected to lead to about 1,200 job losses. The country will continue to produce the bulk of its vaccines, it said. GSK had nearly 67,000 employees globally at the end of last year, according to its annual report.

GSK stuck to its annual forecasts, with R&D spending set to grow faster than sales. It expects to begin 22 late-stage studies of new medications by the end of the year, 18 of which are already under way, with a focus on specialty medicines and vaccines.

Miels said that Shingrix had the “potential to grow next year,” describing it as “a remarkable product”. He pointed to two large studies of the vaccine to assess the reduction of dementia risk, as well as its effects on major adverse cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes, with the first data available in 2029 and 2027 respectively.

Both studies could be “transformative” for the shingles vaccine, he added.