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GSK plc (GSK)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 4, 2010

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Transcript

Andrew Witty

Management

Let me start by saying, I really think that 2009 was a very important year for GSK, more than for any other reason that it really started to demonstrate that the strategy that we've been deploying over the last couple of years has really begun to bite and start to deliver. And that's being true across a number of parts of the business that I'll describe in a few minutes. I think it's also an important year, psychologically, because it saw the return to sales growth for the first time, since 2007. And it's sometimes interesting, and I did this little analysis on Friday just to look back and during '07, '08, and '09 between U.S. generics and the loss of an Avandia sales, the company actually lost £4.5 billion of turnover in the '07,'08, '09 period, but actually grew by 500 million. So, in that period, where we clearly had tremendous pressure on us from U.S. generics and Avandia to name just a couple of big areas, we've been able to grow the overall business, actually added £5 billion of new sales over those three years. And of course, in 2009, what you started to see is that reflected in a net growth of sales, as the headwinds have started to diminish and the tailwinds have started to become stronger. And that's because, A, obviously, a change in some of those negatives, but, B, more importantly, coming on stream of a whole series of sources of growth for the business. In some ways, as I look forward now into 2010, really start to see the company come through what you might have regarded, as its patent cliff in terms of saying goodbye to a whole portfolio of legacy brands in the U.S. marketplace. I am not too humorous this…

Julian Heslop

Management

Thank you, Andrew, and good afternoon. I will, as always, talk about performance excluding restructuring costs. And I'll mainly focus on growth at constant exchange rates. This chart here summarizes our overall performance. As you can see, turnover was up 3% and EPS up 2% for the year. Within EPS, we took a gain on the formation of our HIV venture with Pfizer of £296 million, and in the year we absorbed total legal charges of £591 million, as against £611 million in the year before. You will see a strong currency benefit of about 14%. If exchange rates stay roughly where they are now for the rest of this year, which, of course, is always a false prediction. But nonetheless, if they were to, we'd see about a 1% adverse movement in 2010. Notice the free cash flow, strong performance there. And if you express free cash flow, as a percentage of total earnings after restructuring costs, you come up with a number of 94%, so it's a good performance there. It's just split pharmaceutical turnover, so turnover between pharmaceuticals and consumer. I'm going to cover each in a moment. This chart simply shows you the geographic spread of our pharmaceutical business, and also includes the Consumer Healthcare business. I'd make a couple of comments. Firstly, generic competition, yet again, in 2009 hit the business, particularly U.S. pharmaceuticals, and that's the driver of that 13% decline. And equally, we benefited, on the other hand, from flu pandemics and vaccine and Relenza sales, particularly in Europe. So that did, both those impacted results. I think, if you look at the chart, an obvious conclusion is the investments that diversified GSK continuing to work. You see great growth in places like emerging markets, up 20%, Japan up 22% and consumer up…

Andrew Witty

Management

Okay, thanks Julian. We'll then open up to Q&A now.

Andrew Baum - Morgan Stanley

Management

It's Andrew Baum from Morgan Stanley. Three question please, firstly, now that you have built out, continue to build out your non-small molecule assets, namely consumer health vaccines emerging markets, does that helps you accelerate the process reducing your internal research infrastructures small molecules. So, now you have actually got these additional platforms replace that scale is that make you more comfortable about pushing with accelerating the timeline that which you see some of the infrastructure you referred to? Second, do you have sufficient [BGNL] teams in order to take full advantage of external opportunities which exist out that or is that something that you are looking to still bulk out? And then finally, could you talk about the broader implications of externalization, passing boxes or something that have been talked about in U.K. and many, many other European countries, to what extent this externalization have any impact on more adverse or less opportunistic tax environment compared to maintaining internal research presence?

Andrew Witty

Management

Okay, thanks Andre. I think, in terms of the first question, not really a huge link there, I think that we are really looking, obviously, we're looking to invest behind where we can drive growth in the business. That's clearly what the emerging market strategy and the like is around. R&D is a closely related but really independent agenda, which is how do we get value out of this organic engine? And so, and how do we drive up the return? And I think what has made us more confident, if I can, usual you know, state your concept, to make those changes is our belief in the progress. We're actually making things like the discovery performance units our ability to work the external network as discovery organization. And it's more what's gone well in R&D, which has revealed what we can afford to pull back on in R&D, rather than, so that was your first answer. As far as business development licensing, not to endorse any particular bank, but if you were at the JPM conference in San Francisco, you wouldn't have wondered whether we were sure of business development people, I think, we had 50 people at that meeting and we did 300 meetings in the three days. So, we have a lot of people. I don't think, we're short of people, but in my view, this is all about having a handful of brilliant people. So, we're always looking for whether we can augment that. And so, I feel very good that we have the machine. We have some great people in there, but there's no doubt, as we've stepped up both at the corporate level, at the R&D partnering level and even at the VC investment level, we've been looking for and have been securing specific…

Andrew Witty

Management

Why don't you answer the guidance questions, and I'll address the R&D.

Julian Heslop

Management

In terms, then, of the £800 million to £900 million, I expect about £300 million to be royalties roughly, and so the rest will be divestment gains and may be a certain small offset in terms of impairments where you saw we took some pretty hefty impairments this year. There's not much value left to be impaired. So that's an overall, it's a rather sad comment, really, isn't it? So, I shown is potential for the future. That hopefully answers that question. Sorry; your other one was? In terms of legal, yes, I mean, look, you can't predict legal charges, clearly. We've progressed with our cases, looking to settle them clearly, if we can settle them at a reasonable figure; if not, we go to litigation. All these things take time, I think, all I can guide you to is that we have a historic range of between £250 million and £600 million with an average of about £450 million, I think that's probably the only information I can give you. But you can't predict them.

Andrew Witty

Management

So, in terms of your first couple of questions, Graham, in terms of where we get the attrition rate from, we've calculated what we think the industry attrition rates are. They are very similar to the kind of surveys you describe. The reason we're doing that is we're not building in here some big assumption that we can massively change attrition rate. That's really the point here, that we are not loading the future or the assessment by some belief that we're going to be, and actually, our attrition rates over the last four or five years have been quite similar to industry rates, it's an area to improve, but it's not one that, today, I'm going to stand here and say we've found the magic bullet. In terms of how we get to 14, it's basically both. So, it's an aspiration to improve from where we are. And clearly, both dimensions are important. So, you've seen today announcements of proposals to reduce our cost of R&D, particularly around fixed infrastructure, clearly, that has an impact on potential returns. But obviously, also, the potential sales forecasts, which will be driven by greater differentiation is the other side of the equation. It's clearly both, and that's what we're focused on at both ends of the equation.

Julian Heslop

Management

So, one other point, I know it's probably obvious, which in case it is in the impairments I was talking about are equity impairments which rely on other operating income. Clearly, if we have any impairments in respect of R&D, assets, in licensed assets, they fall as an R&D charge.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

The first question is, sorry, it's a boring question about FX. But I've been trying to get my head around this. You had a 4% FX benefit on the sales but that 22 that looks like a 10 or probably slightly lower hit on the bottom line. And I understand there has been this wind factor from having exchange losses this quarter and gains in the quarter last year, which about 6% wind factor, can you just run us through the P&L, where the negative effect comes from?

Julian Heslop

Management

Sure. It really does look odd, doesn't it, in the fourth quarter? And it actually looked odd last year. You've got these exchange gains and losses that have a significant, I think, it's about 8% or 9% in terms of the quarter four EPS movement. It doesn't affect sales at all. That's the first point. The second point is a more complicated one because the fourth quarter is always a cash out. Remember, we use average rates for the whole year, so there is a catch-up in the fourth quarter to average everything out of that final average rate, which does have an effect. Finally, what I always do, and I do it, myself, at the end of the year, is I look at the full year, see our actual rate differential, and I use that simple ready reckon we gave you, if you use that for the full year, it all works pretty perfectly. Actually, the thing to remember when you do that, when we reckon it for the full year, is you've got to take that exchange gain/loss impact out of the [AR/CR] growth, which brings you down to the level we saw for the full year. So, that's the answer. If you need any more --

Andrew Witty

Management

He's available later, if you want more on that.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I will have to think that through. Firstly, just on R&D, when I look at the new restructuring program, you telling us £250 million savings, 70% coming through the bottom line, but before that, you had broadly been guiding to, we should think R&D being pretty flat going forward. So does it mean it's now going to decline or is that actually going to be reinvested into non-Pharma R&D as in consumer or vaccine R&D? And third question is on the divestment gains. You gave us guidance for this year but you also said it's going to continue beyond 2010. And I know you can't predict them going forward, but it is about a 5% or so swing factor on your earnings. So may be you can suggest a similar range which we should use going forward that's what the legal charge may be? And the final question is just on, you were talking about the internal rate of return in the 2009 acquisition being 14%, you also said that Stiefel has been the largest acquisition, and you have just found, so after the acquisition was done, do you find significance sale synergies from globalizing the sales and from tapping the OTC potential of those brands? So, I'm just wondering what the 14% would have been before you found those sales, those sales synergies, obviously trying to find out what's the real hurdle rate?

Julian Heslop

Management

Well, also in terms of when we look at a transaction before we sell, we are basically looking for transactions where we can get at least the three-year return on invested capital about 8%. And that's actually is quite challenging. And there's a lot of transactions flying around where you can't get to 8% ROIC at year three. Now, you might argue in some parts of, if we were looking at an emerging economy business, we'd probably be looking at more like, we wanted something like 11% or maybe even more than that, to recognize the increased risks around those businesses. SO, in terms of up-front hurdle rate type analysis, and that would be the kind of numbers we're looking for, in terms Stiefel, we've shown you kind of where were at today, a lot of what I've talked to today is, in terms of where we are going, what I think will drive up the return on that transaction. So, I think that transaction will continue to improve. And what I also said was all the funds on this slide are at least 14%. I didn't say which one each individual one was. And I didn't say they were all 14%. So, don't miss that, either.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

So, let me ask the question another way, then. Finding this sales synergies is at been a key driver about 14%, or is it minus thing?

Julian Heslop

Management

Particularly the consumer synergies is not a key driver of whatever the return is for Stiefel.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

…globalization which could?

Andrew Witty

Management

Globalization and the proximity were always part of the thought of process client Stiefel. Consumerization is something we've really started to focus on since we've made the decision to go forward. So, it enhanced our confidence we can drive great to returns.

Julian Heslop

Management

To answer your question another way, the bulk of the drive or the value in Stiefel was the existing business, combining it with ours, and there were some sales synergies within it. And it was a contributor, but not a material contributor. It was driven by those cost synergies, which are very significant, because of the manufacturing, because of the administration gains combined the two businesses. And naturally, we are always, when we're looking at investments, although, we believe in sale synergies, we are a lot more skeptical about them than we are about cost synergies. So, it was a strong cost synergies that really reinforced our view that from forgetting about strategy, from a financial point of view this was a good deal, clearly from a strategic point of view it was.

Andrew Witty

Management

To mention legal, while you are…

Julian Heslop

Management

It was other operating…

Andrew Witty

Management

Sorry, other operating.

Julian Heslop

Management

Yes, look, you are [experiment to say] really guide you to 2011. Obviously, you'd be right. But it's going to be, what we seem to have had a steady royalty income, of course, it moves around, I can't predict it but 275, 300, 325. It depends on what happens to the products that we get royalties from. But it's a pretty steady earner, pretty steady earner. I can't recall a year, where we haven't sold assets, divested assets, in the sense that shake the tree, dropping the low hanging, the fruit that's delivering low returns, products at the end of their life. Or part with somebody who can do a better job than we can. And I think that will go on, I can't give you a number. But again, I think, if you look back in the past, you will see pretty, we do disclose what this is every year a pretty steady. If you look at the past, I know sort of bad predictor for the future if you look back and take an average.

Andrew Witty

Management

And as far as R&D is concerned, let me make a couple of points. First of all, I've always said we're not a slave to a certain percentage of sales or a certain level of R&D. That's never been part of our thinking. We should be very much, in my view, allocating R&D resource to where we believe we can generate superior returns, the best returns. All else being equal, based on what we see today, the announcement we're making today would lead you directly to believe that R&D spend will come down in the future. Not by massive amount because obviously this is a portion of the total. However, if there were great opportunities, if we, I don't know, if tomorrow morning we have an opportunity to license in an asset which we have to pay the Phase III program for, then obviously we are going to take the opportunity. But, all else being equal, absolutely right, we'd expect the savings which we're talking about here to drop down to the bottom line. And as a result, you would see a reduction in Pharma R&D activity absolutely. Next question.

Jeff Holford - Jefferies

Management

Hi, it's Jeff Holford from Jefferies. Two questions. Firstly, on H1N1 order in 2010, I wonder what level of visibility you have so far on the similar level versus last year, what percentage you have sort of very good line of or size on being delivered already for this year? Secondly, as you continue to externalize on some of these products coming to maturity as well, what stage and what aspects do you think about in terms of re-internalizing some those assets, given that potentially become less efficient, I should have just play marketing and co promotion deals et cetera?

Andrew Witty

Management

Good question. As far as H1N1 is concerned, we have very good visibility of contractual position. That doesn't mean to say that that will never change. So, there's no certainty that a government isn't going to come back tomorrow morning or in three weeks' time and say, we want to have another conversation. So, I can't, and I'm not going to pretend that these things are absolutely bulletproof because you are talking about working with very few customers on our whole business and their needs change, then we have to work with them on it. But much of that conversation has already happened and we have very good visibility, and January was a very busy shipping month for vaccines for H1N1. So, we have good visibility, shipments have been very busy. And I'm happy with the steer we've given you in terms of being able to deliver about the same this year as last year. If that changes, we'll let you know, just as we've let you know, I think, we've bent over backwards to try and be pretty real time in terms of giving you a sense of where this was going up. And as it has plateaued, what it's looking like. In terms of re-internalizing external partnerships that's probably the most elegant way I've heard somebody ask that question for quite a long time. So, it's not intuitively what we want to do, actually. So, if you look at the overall strategy of what we are doing, obviously, partnership is a really big part of what we are about. And it's how we are able to leverage a law of discovery activity without consuming huge P&L resources. So, its given there is a huge potential of diverse research without necessarily having to commit too much, not every partner wants to be [bore], right. And so, it's very important that, philosophically, we don't get ourselves into a position where we kind of eat our partners the minute we feel [packish]. And it's really not the way we are going to go. Could it happen? Yes, it could happen. But it's not a philosophical approach we want to take. And I have to say that on most of the partnerships we have which have progressed to a point where you might have this thought in your mind, we have a pretty healthy share of the economics and it's not obvious that it's the right thing to do. So, no, I can't be more specific than that, Jeff, but it's not a philosophical direction of travel that we are revved up on. Next question.

Michael Leacock - RBS

Management

It's Michael Leacock from RBS. Andrew, I think awhile ago you said that one of your key objectives was to simplify the organization. But that was causing you some degree of frustration. I just wondered and held being making progress there. And also just for Julian, just in terms of CapEx in the longer-term, you got this mix of out-sourcing and in-sourcing manufacturing in R&D as well as the mix of emerging markets coming in, how did you get it started a little bit to where you expect your overall CapEx to be for the longer-term, not just asking for 2010 number?

Andrew Witty

Management

Okay. So, on the first one, Michael; I don't look stressed today, do I? No. So, I'm actually, I think, we've made a lot of progress in the last six or eight months on the simplification agenda. Particularly around system selection and standardization, particularly around, and in our simplification of our above country operations, so what we want to get done outside of the subsidiary versus what we want to get done inside. There's a lot of work still to go, but I think we have got a very highly agreed, actually, roadmap of where we are going in terms of systems, in terms of global business services, in terms of service levels, in terms of the kind of resources we're going to need or not need going forward. So, I think, a lot of execution to get done and a lot of, obviously, therefore, the benefits to flow. But I think, we've broken the back of the architecture of what we want. And I feel pretty good about that, actually. So no; I'm feeling okay about that.

Julian Heslop

Management

Next two or three years, we've been running at about 5% of sales, 6% of sales. We ran about £1.4 billion, £1.5 billion, putting a lot of money into vaccines in terms of new products. Rough estimate, as we sit here today around that sort of level, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, not dramatically for the next two to three years. There will come a point, though, where we reach that position in vaccines where we have established that new manufacturing base. Then, I'd like to think we can bring it down, but as of today, over the next few years, I think, around about the £1.5 billion level is probably as good a steer as I can give you.

Andrew Witty

Management

Okay. Next question.

Naresh Chauhan - ICAP

Management

Naresh Chauhan from ICAP. Just a couple of questions on emerging markets please, what is rent up the investment in SG&A in emerging markets when do you feel you will have sufficient scale that to stop the investment ramp up? And secondly, can you give us some sense of your market share in the BRIC countries and where you think this investment can get you to?

Andrew Witty

Management

Great questions. So, we're continuing to scale up, but it's beginning to differentiate across the world. So in, for example, Middle East, North Africa, we are getting very close to where we need to be. We are continuing to build up in China, although, in a very, not in a north's way, in a pretty gradual way. Keeping control of your operations in China is not a trivial proposition, and so its happening, but in a relatively gradual way. Latina you will see things build up in. So, there will be some patterns around the place, but probably the biggest part of the surge has happened, rather than to come. In terms of market shares, it varies around the world. So again, MENA, Middle East, North Africa, we are running around 9% to 10% market share. If you go to India, we are the second biggest pharmaceutical company in India, after Ranbaxy Daiichi, probably running there around a 5%, 5.5% share, something like that. China we're much lower, and Latina, we are much lower. And so, we want to, obviously, grow in all those markets. We definitely need to do some catch-up in Latina, I think, China, we are on the right course, a very strong growth performance in China last year. Latina, for me, is kind of still a little bit needs some attention. Where do we want to go, long run? We want to grow faster than the market in the emerging market region that we described and that's the goal. So, we intend to grow share and obviously we're going to need to do it in places like Latina, China and to some degree, India. But India we are already huge; it's a question of, really, what is a realistic growth rate. Thank you. Yes please.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

UBS. Another question on R&D, this time from the cost side, the data you gave was pretty interesting. To what extent does this reflect out performance for Glaxo or a general trend in the industry in terms of zero recruitment for sites et cetera? And then, secondly, on Advair IP, I noticed that there's been a citizens' petition since the last set of results. To what extent is that beholden to new rules in timing from the FDA versus having some exceptions because there is that device involved here?

Andrew Witty

Management

Okay. As far as the R&D performance, I don't know how well the other companies are doing. Our sense is that the kind of level of focus that we have on really turning those points of efficiency all up and down the activity set of R&D is probably rare, if not unique. So, I can't guarantee that it's not happening on this scale. We have a huge program across R&D, where we are focused on essentially taking a lot of the practices, and this is in development, a lot of the practices which we've test driven and have helped us a lot in manufacturing, and applied it into our R&D development teams. A lot of it is around Lean Sigma and the key with Lean Sigma, as you well know, is not that it's a great idea and it makes sense, the question is, can you get 100 teams to do it in parallel? Or, is it just going to be one or two people do it, and everybody else carries on like they were? So, it's really about how you get that scale of impact. We have a series of these programs if I sponsor personally the development cost reduction program in the company. So, what that means is we have a team of people led by two of our Senior Vice Presidents, who are looking, working with every single development team in the company. And they worked together, multiple team, individual team, looking at every single piece of their program so how they could do better though compared to other best performers in the company and other best in class. So, as to my knowledge, there has never been, so far in the last 16 months, a single intervention like that which has not reduced the cost of…

Unidentified Analyst

Management

In terms of timing for a response?

Andrew Witty

Management

Absolutely no idea. Yeah, please.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I have two questions. The first one relates to the AdCom on [inaudible] on the 10th of March and have you been asked to present or any specific request by the FDA to run Phase IV programs even on products that are already on the market and if you have or if there is that scope, is that affecting your decision on when you initiate Phase III trials for the horizon program? And the second question is a philosophical one, if you like. But you are exiting large parts of neuroscience. I assume from your presentation subject to consultation that perhaps one of the sites might close some of your location et cetera, et cetera, can you make or paint a picture here how you aim to do that, will you just be put lock-in and walk away from that? Or are you looking to may be put some of the assets together and spin it out or is this held some of the IP, how do you propose to go about doing that?

Andrew Witty

Management

Two good questions. As far as the AdCom is concerned, the AdCom is focused on what, if any, safety studies ought to be done for marketed products. Whether that's ultimately the full scope of the AdCom, I have to wait and see. As you know, it was only just announced few days ago. We haven't been asked to do anything specific, at this point. Obviously, we have an opinion. It's not an easy question to answer. Remember, we've had a series of AdComs on this class of products. You remember that Advair, I think, was the only product to the last I would count on a unanimous vote of support from the Advisory Board. So, and it's not a trivial question to how do you disprove the possibility of this event, when it's so rare. So, we'll have to see how that goes. As far as where we are in terms of starting horizon in, we are in the final discussions with the FDA on that. We are ready to go on it. We just need to decide whether we wait for the AdCom or not. We'll make that decision, as we kind of go through the next few weeks. So, no kind of substantive news on that to be honest with you. In terms of potential scale down of sites or ex set of sites, I'm going to be a little bit reticent here, this is we are only just telling, literally, we're telling our employees, while we've been inside, in this room. So, I'm just going to be a little bit reticent on that, for the benefit of them. But obviously, we're going to be looking forward to working with unions and employee representatives to come up with whatever is the best outcome that we possibly can. But beyond that, I'm just going to leave it there because its important we have those conversations with our employees first.

Justin Smith - JPMorgan

Management

It's Justin Smith from JPMorgan. I've just got two questions. The first question Andrew, about 18 months ago you said getting very interesting anecdotes, on the cost of good lines the pharmaceutical business could learn a lot from the consumer business, so I am just interested to get your thoughts on why with the new £500 million starting program, there are some cost of good synergies in there all this addition on top of the 500? And then, the second question, with regards to when you slowed down the pace of the share buyback, just wanted to really get your thoughts with regards to ranking the organization's since then are you happy with the deal making that's being done? Could there be room for improvement, I know, the world has changed. But just wanted to get some thoughts there as well.

Andrew Witty

Management

Good question. CGS, actually, the reason why, so you end up with big restructuring charges in CGS when you close factories to release cost. We've kind of done that now. We've got one or two sites which we're winding out, and that's part of the current £1.7 billion restructuring program. But actually, was much more, what I'm talking about now is you are seeing literally product after product be reassessed for process efficiency and so actually we've got some significant efficiencies built into our future five years from manufacturing. But it's not going to require huge amounts of upfront write-offs, which actually is very positive. So, the agenda for manufacturing, if anything, is more constructive to the profitability of the company, and it's not costing huge amounts of money to access it. And the amount of, and you're right, there's lots of lessons. Just as I've said, there's lessons from R&D to learn from manufacturing, there are certainly lessons from consumer to Pharma. So, to give you an example we are part of what is called the [inaudible] box benchmarking study, which is a McKinsey pan-pharma consumer benchmark is there and we have, I think, 10 of our 11 Pharma or 10 of our Pharma sites are in the top quartile of all, 10 of our consumer sites are in the top quartile of all consumer factories. So, we've got fabulous efficiencies in consumer. And it's exactly what's going on in those sites, which is being shared into Pharma along with Lean Sigma approaches, along with, frankly, we launched Ventolin in 1969. Surely something has changed since then which could allow us to be even more efficient, I mean, just simple, obvious statements of fact. So, that's the kind of place you are going to see. And it's why Julian…