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GSK revenue disappoints with 3% fall to $8.9B

Matthew Lloyd | Bloomberg | Getty Images

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK (London Stock Exchange: GSK-GB)), reported third-quarter revenue down 3 percent to £5.6 billion ($8.9 billion), lower than the £5.7 billion forecast by analysts, as sales of its blockbuster asthma drug Advair continued to fall.

The company is eying an initial public offering of part of ViiV, its HIV joint venture with Pfizer and Shionogi, which could be worth up to £15 billion as a separate entity.

Andrew Witty, chief executive of the pharmaceuticals company, outlined the company's plans for a reorganization, after a deal with Switzerland-based Novartis (Swiss Exchange: NOVN-CH) which will see GSK take over the Swiss company's vaccines business, and sell its oncology treatments to Novartis.

GSK will save £1 billion annually from the deal by 2020, according to Witty. He did not give details of estimated job losses at the company.

He also reaffirmed GSK's commitment to the full year 2014 dividend, which will be 3 percent higher than 2013 at 80p.

Witty said "changed dynamics" in the U.S. health care market had affected sales of Advair and other respiratory products.

During the quarter, the company was hit both by a record fine over allegations it paid doctors in China to prescribe its medicines, and by declining sales of Advair.

It is working on one of two Ebola vaccines in development, and is hoping to start wide-scale trials early next year. The trial process is much quicker than normal, because of the heightened threat to public health, and lack of available treatments against the Ebola virus.

Witty confirmed that the company is "working hard" to develop a potential vaccine.

The company had to pay a 3 billion yuan ($490 million) fine to the Chinese government, a record for a foreign company in China.

Its share price has underperformed its European peers this year, as other companies like smaller AstraZeneca became bid targets - and as GSK revenues disappointed.


- By CNBC's Catherine Boyle