Blockbuster drugs will lead sales bonanza at £81bn Glaxo

New boss lays bare her vision for FTSE giant

GLAXOSMITHKLINE’S new boss will put pioneering drugs at the heart of her new vision for the company.

Speaking to investors for the first time yesterday, Emma Walmsley said the £81bn company will focus on developing blockbuster drugs – those that bring in at least £1bn a year – rather than rolling out multiple new launches.

In a bold move, the mother of four claimed GSK would be returning to its glory days of science and innovation, which saw it produce leading asthma drug Advair, as it seeks to maintain its stronghold at the top of the FTSE 100.

Advair, once one of the firm’s most profitable medicines with a market value of more than £1bn, is now being threatened by cheaper generic rivals.

Walmsley, 47, who has been chief executive for just 27 days, is the first female boss of the company, and was chosen ahead of Abbas Hussain, the brother of former England cricket captain Nasser Hussain, who quit his role as global head of pharmaceuticals in January.

She said: ‘We have always been a science-based company, it is at the heart of who we are, and I have been incredibly impressed as I have gone round the company in recent months to meet our scientists.

‘However, we need to remind ourselves that innovation is absolutely the priority of what we do, and I want to make that more at the heart of where we spend our leadership time and what we spend our time talking about.’

Walmsley, who joined the drugs giant in 2010, having previously worked for French beauty giant L’Oreal, is paid a basic salary of just over £1m. But when including bonuses, pension benefits and performance-related incentives, Walmsley’s maximum earnings could reach £8.7m – making her one of the best-paid women in the FTSE.

In a further move to stamp her authority on the business, the Oxford graduate hinted she would be keeping GSK as a monolith – defying major investors such as Neil Woodford who have long called for its pharmaceutical, consumer health and vaccines business to be split up.

Her approach represents a shift for GSK, which has recently had a large number of new drug launches but has not come up with the kind of multi-billionpound blockbusters produced by Big Pharma rivals.

Under previous chief executive Sir Andrew Witty, GSK built up a diversified business, with its core pharmaceuticals operation buttressed by large consumer health and vaccine units – a structure that Walmsley said had both logic and benefits. But the company has struggled to deliver decent returns to investors for around five years, due to sluggish drug sales, although in recent quarters it has returned to steady growth.

Walmsley added: ‘ We do believe there is both logic and benefit to having a three-business unit in pharma, vaccines and consumer products, not least because of the uncertainty and volatility that comes with a pharma business.’

Glaxo is the third biggest company on the FTSE with a global workforce of more than 100,000.

GSK shares yesterday fell 2pc, or 33p, to 1566p.