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GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has reported a slight increase in its annual group turnover to £34.1 billion in 2020 as operating profit hit close to £7.8 billion.
Over the 12 months to the end of December 2020, the group had strong sales across key growth drivers, including HIV, Respiratory, Oncology and Consumer Healthcare, reflecting its resource focus on therapy areas, markets and brands with greatest potential.
The company cited 'new and speciality products' as the main drivers of growth over the year, with sales of £9.7 billion, up 11%.
Total earnings per share were 115.5p, up 23%, while adjusted earnings per share were 115.9p, down 6%.
Splitting out the final three months of 2020, however, shows that the pharmaceutical giant experienced a significant slow down, suffering a fall in turnover across consumer healthcare, established pharmaceuticals and HIV treatments.
In 2020, GSK a dividend of 80p per share and delivered £5.4 billion of free cash flow.
GSK's CEO, Emma Walmsley, said: 'Innovation for healthcare impact is the heart of our purpose and strengthening our R&D pipeline remains our first priority. In 2020 we made further significant progress, continuing to build a high-value biopharma pipeline focused on vaccines and speciality medicines, harnessing the science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies.
'We continue to use our science to contribute to the COVID-19 response on multiple fronts. We were of course disappointed with the delay to our vaccine being developed with Sanofi, but we continue to progress this along with others as well as in-house and externally-partnered therapeutics.'
She added that the group is looking ahead to the 'potential need for next generation COVID-19 vaccines' to use as a booster or to combat new variants of the virus. GSK has been working with CureVac to research and develop several mRNA vaccines which includes for Covid-19.
At 2:18pm: (LON:GSK) Glaxosmithkline PLC share price was 0p at 1437p