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news.GlaxoSmithKline has reported a high single digit decrease in full-year earnings for 2004, but remains confident for 2005.
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For the year ended December 31, 2004, earnings per share were down 9% compared to last year, although Q4 figures showed a 6% increase, which will, no doubt, buoy the company’s hopes for a good performance in 2005.
Global pharmaceutical sales grew 1% in 2004, despite the significant impact of generic competition to Paxil and Wellbutrin. Excluding sales of these products, turnover grew 10% in the USA and 7% globally.
The company reported strong performance from a number of key products. Seretide/Advair for asthma was up 19% to GBP2.5 billion, Avandia/Avandamet for diabetes was up 32% to GBP1.1 billion, Lamictal for epilepsy/bipolar disorder was up 32% to GBP678 million, and Coreg for heart disease was up 34% to GBP432 million. The company also reported an 11% increase in its vaccine sales, weighing in at GBP1.2 billion.
Total sales of Wellbutrin products fell 12% to GBP751 million, with Wellbutrin IR and SR sales falling 64% to GBP284 million as a result of generic competition. This impact was partially offset, however, by the exceptionally strong performance of Wellbutrin XL, the new once-daily product, which achieved sales of GBP467 million in its first full year on the market.
Generic competition to Paxil IR also brought total sales of the Paxil franchise down 39% to GBP1.1 billion. Mitigating this decline was the continued strong performance of the product in Japan (up 25% to GBP171 million) and the performance of Paxil CR which generated sales of GBP396 million (up 14%).
Commenting on the performance for the year and GSK’s outlook, JP Garnier, CEO, said: “These results confirm the success with which GSK has navigated a difficult year, absorbing over GBP1.5 billion of lost sales to generics and still managing to grow the business. The continuing success of our key products means we can now look forward to a good performance in 2005.
“2005 will also be an important year in terms of R&D pipeline progress. We expect to generate significant new data on our major phase III assets as well as making good progress with our large portfolio of phase II NCEs.”
On an IFRS basis, 2005 EPS percentage CER growth is expected to be in the low double-digit range (which equates to high single digit growth in UK GAAP terms).
GSK also announced that clinical development of ‘771, a CCK-A agonist for obesity, has been discontinued after the treatment candidate failed to demonstrate sufficient efficacy to ensure a competitive profile.