GlaxoSmithKline (pharmaceutical transnational)

• GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a major pharmaceutical company headquartered in the UK.
• In 2013 the company’s turnover was £23 billion.
• it has 84 manufacturing sites in 36 different countries.
• it has research and development (R&D) centres in the UK, USA, Spain, Belgium and China.
• Pharmaceuticals, including medicines for a range of acute and chronic disease, account for 2/3 of GSK’s turnover.
• In 2014 it distributed >800 million doses of vaccine, of which 80% were to countries in the developing world.
• It also produces for type-2 diabetes, bacterial infection and oncology.
• It produced a number of well-known medications, such as amoxicillin to fight bacterial infections, zidovudine for HIV infection, and bendazole to combat parasitic infections, which are all on WHO’s list of essential medications.
• GSK employs 13000 people in R&D
• GSK spends more than £3 billion a year researching new medicines.
• Drugs can be so expensive due to the long and costly process of developing and testing new drugs, and due to the high failure rate.
• LIDCs, who have the most demand for drugs in HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB are not able to recoup the development costs of the drugs.
• GSK’s R&D centre in Spain primarily focuses on TB, malaria and other tropical diseases.
• GSK developed & launched the first effective vaccine against malaria known as RTS,S/AS01 In 2023
• GSK is providing 3 HIV/AIDS drugs to LIDCs at significant discounts.
• GSK grants licences for the manufacture of cheap generic versions of its patented drugs.
• GSK caps the price of patented drugs to developing countries to 25% of the UK price.
• GSK invests 20% of its profits from sales in each developing country into that country’s health infrastructure.