About us

About us

What we do

Our mission and strategy

Key achievements

Board of Directors

Corporate Executive Team

Grow a diversified global business

Over the past five years we have created a more balanced business and product portfolio, capable of delivering sustainable sales growth. This is centred on our three business areas of Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare, which provide us with significant competitive advantages and opportunities for synergy. We have substantially increased our investment in higher-growth areas such as emerging markets and Japan and in our global Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare businesses. At the same time, we have re-shaped our US Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines business to reflect the changing market dynamics there and to prepare for the launch of multiple new products. In Europe, we are restructuring to improve efficiency and focus resources to growth opportunities in what continues to be a challenging market environment.

Deliver more products of value

We have changed our R&D organisation so that it is better able to sustain a pipeline of products that offer valuable improvements in treatment for patients and healthcare providers. We have increased the externalisation of our research, allowing us to access new areas of science and to share the risk of development with our partners. We have also changed our processes to make decisions earlier, so that only those medicines which are significantly differentiated from existing therapies are progressed. We have broken up the traditional hierarchical R&D business model and created smaller, more agile groups of scientists who are accountable for their projects. All of this has been underpinned with a focus on improving the rates of return in R&D and being more rigorous in how we allocate investment across Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare R&D.

Simplify the operating model

As our business continues to change shape, we are transforming how we operate so that we can reduce complexity and become more efficient. Over the past four years we have implemented a global restructuring programme designed to deliver significant savings to support investment in our priority growth businesses as well as offset pressures on the Group’s margin resulting from changes in the shape and mix of our business. Savings from this programme have been generated across the business. As this programme comes to an end, we are continuing to examine ways to simplify our operating model and increase efficiencies. We have therefore begun a new, major change programme across manufacturing, R&D and Europe to deliver further savings. The new programme includes a series of technological advances and opportunities to eliminate complexities and improve our competitiveness further.