GlaxoSmithKline financial position Essay

GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (NYSEGSK) shares are up at 0.98% at the close of market on January 20, 2015. The 52-week range is $37.24 to $49.08. The beta value was at 0.88 points and the earning per share (EPS) was 5.79. The company has a total market capitalization of $94.70 billion with 4.87 billion outstanding shares.
COMPANY'S FINANCIAL POSITION
The financial position of the company is a bit sluggish due to the patent expiry of Advair resulted in a downfall of 10% in sales. In 2014, total sales was 2014 is $37.96 billion, which is down to $41.61 billion in 2013.
This downtrend in the sales was patched up by very strong performances from other pharma products especially the oncology portfolio boosted the sales lineup to 41% in the U.S. to reach £509 million, with the launches of melanoma Tafinlar and Mekinist.
DRUG APPROVALS
In December last year, GlaxoSmithKline announced that the European Commission has given the marketing authorization for Nucalaregistered (mepolizumab) as an add-on treatment for the treatment of severe refractory eosinophilic asthma in adult patients.
With this approval, Nucala is now approved in 31 European countries covered by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The drug is indicated with a fixed dosage of 100mg subcutaneously via injection every four weeks.
Nucala is the only approved biologic therapy that specifically targets interleukin-5 (IL-5.
In the same month, GSK also got approval from the European Commission for Volibris (ambrisentan) for the patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
The drug is indicated for the treatment of PAH in adult patients of WHO Functional Class (FC) II to III, including use in combination treatment.
Furthermore to make the product portfolio stronger and hefty, the company received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Biologics License Application (BLA) for Nucala for the surplus maintenance treatment of severe asthma in the patients aged 12 years and older along with an eosinophilic phenotype.
POSITIVE TRIAL RESULTS
GlaxoSmithKline announced that it had received positive excellent results from the phase III programme for sirukumab. It is a human anti-interleukin (IL)-6 monoclonal antibody for the treatment of patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
The company keeping it intentions for the development of new drugs announced the results from the BLISS-SC Phase III pivotal study. This trial involved the patients with active, autoantibody-positive systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
These results proved that Benlystaregistered (belimumab) 200mg administered weekly via subcutaneous injection plus standard of care (SoC) has significantly reduced the disease progression as compared to placebo plus SoC
ViiV Healthcare and Shionogi Limited announced that the Phase IIb study LATTE 2 (NCT02120352) had completed its primary endpoints at 32 weeks. These results show that the investigational, long acting, injectable formulations of cabotegravir (ViiV Healthcare) and rilpivirine (Janssen) were comparable in maintaining viral suppression rates to a three drug oral regimen of investigational cabotegravir and two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs).
Furthermore, the company announced results from the 'LABA' (long acting beta2-agonist) safety study, AUSTRI (SAS115359).