By Eva Mathews
(Reuters) – GSK on Wednesday raised its full-year profit and sales forecasts for a second time, after better-than-expected quarterly sales of its newly-launched respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine.
The London-listed drugmaker’s shares rose around 3% in early trade.
GSK is betting on RSV vaccine Arexvy to be its next blockbuster medicine as it faces a combination of patent expiries and declining revenue from its current bestsellers by the end of this decade.
Arexvy, launched in the United States recently, recorded third quarter sales of 709 million pounds ($862 million), trouncing analysts’ expectations of 358 million pounds, according to a company-compiled consensus.
GSK accounts for close to two-thirds of RSV shots given in the United States since early September, according to IQVIA data.
Arexvy is also the only shot being carried by CVS the largest U.S.
pharmacy chain, giving GSK an edge over U.S. rival Pfizer whose RSV shot Abrysvo also hit markets recently.
Full-year sales are seen between 900 million pounds and 1 billion pounds for the shot, GSK said.
It is currently approved in the U.S., Europe, Japan and other countries to protect adults aged 60 years and older.
Markets were looking for strong quarterly results and an increase to guidance, but GSK has exceeded those hopes, driven by the RSV launch, said Dani Saurymper, a portfolio manager at Pacific Asset Management and a GSK shareholder.
GSK now expects annual adjusted earnings per share to rise between 17% and 20%, excluding the effect of currency swings, up from 14% to 17% growth previously forecast.
Sales are tipped to rise by 12% to 13% in 2023, compared with earlier expectations of 8% to 10%.
Still, costly U.S.
litigation over GSK’s discontinued heartburn drug Zantac remains an overhang.
The company faces about 79,000 cases related to Zantac in the United States, with 73,000 of them in Delaware and scheduled for trial starting January 2024.
For the third quarter, Shingrix, the company’s top-selling drug for shingles, generated 825 million pounds in sales.
“GSK’s longer-term outlook also continues to strengthen, with progress in our vaccines pipeline, the development of our ultra long-acting HIV portfolio and significant new prospects in respiratory,” CEO Emma Walmsley said in a statement.
($1 = 0.8226 pounds)
(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru and Maggie Fick in London; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter)
