GSK plc

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the analyst call on the GSK second quarter 2021 results. I will now hand you over to Ian McKay, CFO who will introduce today's

Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2021 results which were issued earlier today. You should have received our press release and view the presentation on GSK's website. For those who are not able to view the webcast, slides that accompany today's call are located on the investor section of the GSK website. Before we begin, please refer to slide two of our presentation for our cautionary statements. Our speakers today are Emma Walmsley, Luke Miles, Deborah Waterhouse, Dr. Hal Barron, Brian McNamara and myself Ian McKay. Joining us for the Q&A portion of the call will be Roger Connor and David Redfan. We request that you ask only a maximum of two questions so that everyone has a chance to participate. Our presentation will last for approximately 30 minutes in order to maximise the opportunity for questions and with that I'll hand the call over to Emma.

Thank you Ian and a very warm welcome to you all. We're pleased to report a strong financial performance and continued progress against our strategic priorities this quarter. Second quarter sales and adjusted EPS were up 15 and 71% respectively at CER. These excellent results were driven by a combination of strong double-digit growth in new and specialty pharma products, a significant increase in vaccine sales reflecting both an improving picture for vaccination rates and a major sales contribution for our pandemic adjuvant, good growth in consumer healthcare with double-digit growth in six of the nine power brands and discipline in control of costs. As expected the quarter did benefit from a favourable comparison to the second quarter last year which was heavily disrupted by the pandemic and while further disruption cannot be ruled out we are seeing positive momentum which we expect to continue through the second half of the year. Assuming a second half backdrop of improving demand for adult vaccinations and normalising health and consumer trends in key markets we believe we are likely to deliver adjusted EPS at the better end of our guidance. I just want to remind you that this guidance excludes any contribution from COVID-19 solutions which we expect to add between four and six percent to our adjusted EPS in 21. Alongside financial performance we continue to make good progress in R&D and our strategic delivery. Among our key assets we completed the filing of long-acting cabotegravip for prevention of HIV and we announced positive headline results for all five phase three studies of our promising specialty medicine Daproductat. Very importantly we also continue to strengthen the pipeline this quarter securing three exciting new collaborations in HIV, immuno-oncology and immunoneurology. And lastly this quarter also saw us lay out our new growth outlooks for GSK and the proposed de-merger of consumer healthcare. Delivering scale health impact and maximising value for shareholders are at the core of these plans and we've received widespread support from shareholders for them together with a clear message to focus on execution and successful delivery. We are all strongly committed to doing so. Progress for this quarter is reflected across all three of our strategic priorities. In innovation we continue to build a high-value pipeline across prevention and treatment of disease through organic and inorganic delivery. In performance improved commercial execution is driving strong growth in new and specialty pharma products. For Shingrix specifically we're clearly seeing the beginnings of a recovery and performance as COVID vaccination programmes amongst older populations near completion. The US new to brand prescriptions for Shingrix are up 73% in the quarter and we saw good performance across the consumer business with the exception of sustained weakness in cold and flu in a few specific areas where consumer trends haven't yet returned to normal. And on trust we continue to maintain leadership in ESG as evidenced by new index ratings. We recently signed as principal partner for COP26 and continue to progress our environmental commitments to be net zero and nature positive by 2030. As you heard of our investor update the scale of the changes we've made in the last four years is unprecedented. To improve performance, strengthen capabilities and prepare GSK for a new future. Our clear priority is to unlock the potential of two world-class businesses and in so doing maximise value for shareholders. With the platform we now have for GSK we expect to deliver highly competitive sales and operating profit growth in the next five years. A step change in expected performance and we aim to achieve sales of more than 33 billion pounds by 2031. All underpinned by an R&D focus on the power of the immune system, a portfolio shift to vaccines and specialty medicines to prevent and treat disease and impacting the lives of two and a half billion people over the next 10 years. And through the proposed e-merger we'll create a new category leading consumer healthcare business serving over a hundred markets with annual sales in 2020 of 10 billion pounds. Driven by brands and innovation to deliver better everyday health, this business has strong prospects for sustainable sales and profit growth, high cash generation and to deliver attractive returns for shareholders. So let me now hand over to the team to talk you through this course's performance in more detail. Luke, first over to you.