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GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK)
Wikipedia | 2012-10-17 18:12
GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) (LSE: GSK, NYSE: GSK) is a British multinational pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines and consumer healthcare company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's fourth-largest pharmaceutical company measured by 2009 prescription drug sales (after Pfizer, Novartis, and Sanofi). It was established in 2000 by the merger of Glaxo Wellcome plc (formed from the acquisition of Wellcome plc by Glaxo plc) and SmithKline Beecham plc (formed from the merger of Beecham plc and SmithKline Beckman Corporation, which was formed by combining the Smith Kline French and Beckman companies).
GSK has a portfolio of products for major disease areas including asthma, cancer, virus control, infections, mental health, diabetes, and digestive conditions. It also has a large consumer healthcare division which produces and markets oral healthcare and nutritional products and over-the-counter medicines including Sensodyne, Boost, Horlicks, and Gaviscon. In July 2012, GSK pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to a $3 billion settlement of the largest health-care fraud case in the U.S. and the largest payment by a drug company in the US. The settlement is related to the company's illegal promotion of best-selling anti-depressants and its failure to report safety data about a top diabetes drug.
GSK has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. As of 6 July 2012, it had a market capitalisation of £74.8 billion, the fifth-largest of any company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1880, Burroughs Wellcome & Company was founded in London by the American pharmacists Henry Wellcome and Silas Burroughs. The Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories opened in 1902. In 1959 ,the Wellcome Company bought Cooper, McDougall & Robertson Inc. to become more active in animal health. The Wellcome Company production centre was moved from New York to North Carolina in 1970, and the following year another research centre was built.
Glaxo was founded in Bunnythorpe, New Zealand, in 1904. Originally Glaxo was a baby food manufacturer processing milk into a baby food of the same name: the product was sold under the slogan "Glaxo builds bonny babies" from 1908. Still visible on the main street of Bunnythorpe is a derelict dairy factory (factory for drying and processing cows' milk into powder) with the original Glaxo logo clearly visible, but nothing to indicate that this was the start of a major multinational company.
Glaxo became Glaxo Laboratories, and opened new units in London in 1935. Glaxo Laboratories bought two companies, Joseph Nathan and Allen & Hanburys, in 1947 and 1958 respectively. After the company bought Meyer Laboratories in 1978, it started to play an important role in the US market. In 1983 the American arm Glaxo Inc. moved to Research Triangle Park (US headquarters/research) and Zebulon (US manufacturing) in North Carolina. Burroughs Wellcome and Glaxo merged in 1995 to form GlaxoWellcome. In the same year, GlaxoWellcome opened its Medicine Research Centre in Stevenage. Three years later GlaxoWellcome bought Polfa Poznan Company in Poland.
GSK employs 97,000 people worldwide of whom about 12,500 work in research and development. Its global headquarters are GSK House in Brentford, United Kingdom, with its United States headquarters based in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina[35] and its consumer products division based in the Pittsburgh suburb of Moon Township, Pennsylvania. The research and development division has major facilities in South East England, Philadelphia and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. GSK has a presence in 99 cities across 39 countries.
GSK's single largest market is in the United States, which generates approximately 45% of its revenues, although the company sells its products in around 70 countries.
