GSK公布三年节流与研发重配计划，并披露camlipixant终止带来13亿英镑减值

GSK has unveiled an ambitious three-year plan to divert resources to its late-stage R&D programs and shift its research headquarters—but CEO Luke Miels is being tight-lipped about the extent of any job losses.
The strategy will aim to generate annual savings of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) by 2029, set against a one-time cost of 2.4 billion pounds ($3.2 billion).
About 45% of the required savings will come from “better procurement,” Miels told journalists on a second-quarter earnings call this morning. This would focus on “areas that are not on the frontline of our labs,” such as “all sorts of systems and consultants and various other partners [and] support functions.”
Another 40% of the savings will come from the “evolving portfolio,” namely “reallocating resources from our mature portfolio of mature products to specialty, novel products.”
However, Miels wasn’t willing to put a figure on the number of job losses that this restructuring could entail.
“We're not going to give a number today in terms of people changes, and that's because I want the chance, and I want my team to have the chance, to discuss this with our people first,” the CEO said on the call.
“I think the key theme, as I've said, is it's about reallocation into new medicines,” he added. “But we will update you in time once we've implemented those plans.”
GSK put the strategy in the context of the looming patent expiry for its dolutegravir range of HIV meds, which begins in 2028. Those treatments, which include Dovato and Tivicay, brought in a combined total of 1.4 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) in the second quarter.
Most of the savings will be reinvested into the late-stage pipeline, Miels explained. This includes antibody-drug conjugates like the Hansoh Pharmaceutical-partnered ris-rez—which scored a phase 3 win today—as well as the ALK inhibitor neladalkib for colon cancer and the FGF21 analog efimosfermin alfa for fatty liver disease.
Part of the savings will also be used to move GSK’s research headquarters from the English town of Stevenage about 30 miles away to Cambridge.
As well as being an academic center and one point of England’s life sciences “golden triangle,” Cambridge is already home to the other U.K.-based Big Pharma, AstraZeneca. In fact, GSK’s new R&D site will be built on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, which already houses AstraZeneca’s Discovery Center.
“This is a 400-million-pound investment—on top of the 1.5 [billion] we spend each year in the U.K. —to further integrate GSK into Cambridge's world-class ecosystem of biomedical research, patient care and academia,” Miels said on the call.
GSK’s headquarters in London will be unaffected by the move, the company pointed out, although Chief Scientific Officer Tony Wood will be based at the Cambridge site.
Miels told journalists that moving R&D “up the road” to Cambridge was an example of the company “putting our money where our mouth is” and proving its commitment to the U.K. life sciences industry.
The CEO, who stepped up to the top job at the start of the year, has already made his mark on GSK with an M&A strategy focused of trying to outdo established blockbusters. This approach has encompassed the $2.2 billion buyout of Rapt Therapeutics for a food allergy reaction drug that targets the same epitope as Novartis and Roche’s Xolair, as well as paying $950 million cash for Canadian biotech 35Pharma and its potential rival to Merck & Co.’s pulmonary hypertension mainstay Winrevair.
Miels said on this morning’s call that he and his team have undertaken a “full portfolio review” over the last six months “looking really across the board for opportunities to accelerate and broaden our development.”
“This review involving the team identified opportunities to accelerate development across 18 indications and 25 studies for seven key assets in oncology, respiratory, hepatology and vaccines,” he explained.
One drug that was recently scrapped was camlipixant. Once hailed as a potential blockbuster, GSK ended development in chronic cough earlier this month due to a mixed phase 3 readout. GSK revealed this morning that decision had come with a 1.3 billion pound ($1.7 billion) financial hit for the company, which it blamed for a 75% drop in operating profits for the quarter.