Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
GSK - Statistics & Facts
GSK – formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline – is among the top 10 global drug manufacturers based on prescription drug sales. It is headquartered in London, and thus, besides AstraZeneca, the second ‘big pharma’ company from the United Kingdom. In 2023, GSK generated 30.3 billion British pounds (around 38.6 billion U.S. dollars) in revenues. The company’s focus areas are therapies for respiratory diseases and HIV, and vaccines. From May 2022 on, the company officially does not use the name GlaxoSmithKline anymore, changing it to just GSK as a reminiscence of the old name.
A history of forming and reshaping
GSK has a rich history of merger and acquisition activities and restructuring measures. However, the largest change was probably the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham in 2000, which led to the establishment of GlaxoSmithKline. This merger is still the fourth-largest all-time pharmaceutical M&A deal, valued at over 72 billion U.S. dollars. Until 2021, GSK was also a global leader in consumer healthcare products. Nevertheless, the company decided to go down the path of specialization and focusing on (bio)pharmaceutical products. On the other hand, the spun-off consumer healthcare division became a new, separate company called Haleon.Expectations not quite met
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, GSK was at the very top among vaccine manufacturers worldwide. Interestingly, the company did not produce one of the early breakthrough products in the fight against the coronavirus, although GSK had a higher number of treatments and vaccines in the pipeline. GSK’s COVID-19 vaccine was a collaborative product with Sanofi Pasteur and was approved in the European Union relatively late, only in November 2022. It struggled with efficacy from the very beginning, especially when compared to the very effective vaccines based on innovative mRNA technology. Accordingly, GSK’s revenues from pandemic-related products have been negligible.
