Stocks in Focus: GlaxoSmithKline

This week we are looking at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) following the appointment of a new Chief Executive, Emma Walmsley, on Monday 3 April. She takes over from Sir Andrew Whitty, who steps down after nearly 10 years in the role, and inherits a business that has recently diversified away from its core Pharmaceuticals division and towards its Consumer Health and Vaccine divisions (following an asset swap with Novartis). Nonetheless, Pharmaceuticals remains the largest division and the focus of this article.

The pharmaceuticals industry relies on heavy investment in research and development to create new treatments. This pipeline is essential as older products lose their patent protections and generic alternatives come into the market, driving down pricing. The development process is expensive, as a drug needs to go through a rigorous process to gain approval. The skill of the new Chief Executive will be to select at an early stage those drugs with a strong likelihood of gaining approval and thereby recouping the development costs and to avoid those that have a low possibility of succeeding.

The UK’s exit from the EU will throw up further uncertainties as the European Medicines Agency currently approves drugs across all 28 member states. It is possible that a new UK regulator could drive companies away from developing drugs in the UK, forcing them instead to focus on Europe. 

The long-term prospects for pharmaceutical companies remains their ability to develop successful new drugs and to get those drugs through expensive clinical trials. GSK has a strong pipeline with a number of drugs expected to gain FDA approval this year. Ms Walmsley’s role as Chief Executive will be to guide the company through the aforementioned uncertainties and focus on the specific treatments and markets that will generate growth over the long term.

- NW Brown Investment Management

For more stocks in focus: https://www.nwbrown.co.uk/library