GSK boosted by Novartis products

Understanding how GSK grew interim sales by 4 per cent to £11.5bn comes down to the timing of the Novartis deal. The transaction completed on 2 March 2015, and so GSK's results include four months of turnover from the former Novartis vaccine and consumer healthcare divisions. The boost is clear: on a pro-forma basis vaccine sales fell 1 per cent in the first half, but including Novartis they rose 11 per cent. Similarly, consumer healthcare sales rose 7 per cent pro-forma but a whopping 37 per cent including the former Novartis products.

It's also evident why GSK scrapped plans to sell off its HIV business. That division - unaffected by the Novartis deal - managed to grow first-half sales by a massive 51 per cent to just over £1bn.

But the size of the generic challenge was equally made clear by a 7 per cent fall in pharmaceutical revenues after a particularly rough second quarter. Sales figures from what GSK calls "established products" were depressing too: turnover there fell 13 per cent to £1.3bn in the first half, with sales in the US crashing 31 per cent after a 64 per cent plunge in sales of prescription omega-3 fish oil drug Lovaza.

Yet chief executive Andrew Witty is trying to put investors' minds at rest. Approximately 40 new drugs are said to be in mid- to late-stage development, and half of those could be on the market or filed for regulatory approval by 2020. A formal update on the company's future product pipeline is scheduled for 3 November 2015.