GSK Targets £1.9B Savings to Fuel Pipeline, Navigate HIV Patent Cliff

GSK is accelerating investment in research and development, expanding its late-stage pipeline and targeting cost savings to support product launches while maintaining profitability through upcoming HIV patent expirations, Chief Financial Officer Julie Brown said during a company discussion.

Brown said CEO Luke, who took the role at the beginning of the year, has focused the company on three priorities: accelerating R&D, funding launches and simplifying operations. GSK formed a Strategic Portfolio Review Group that meets every two weeks with program leaders to assess how priority assets can move faster through development, she said.

In parallel, GSK examined ways to simplify its business using technology and artificial intelligence. The work resulted in a change program announced at the end of July targeting nearly £1.9 billion in savings, with most of those savings intended for reinvestment in the pipeline.

“It means that we have got 20 phase III starts this year from 10,” Brown said, adding that the starts span seven assets and about 18 indications. GSK plans to allow some savings to support margins during the 2028-2030 period when HIV drug dolutegravir loses patent protection. Brown said the company now expects margins during that period to be stable to improving.

GSK is moving its U.K.-based R&D operations from Stevenage to Cambridge, U.K., seeking to benefit from a biotechnology ecosystem that includes Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the University of Cambridge and more than 400 biotech organizations, Brown said. The company expects closer access to hospitals, academic researchers and biotech companies to shorten the path from research to translational medicine and clinical development.

Brown also identified the U.K., the U.S. East Coast, California and China as important locations for business-development activity. In China, GSK has established collaborations with Hengrui in respiratory medicine and Hansoh in oncology. Brown said the companies retain rights in China while GSK holds rights in other markets, allowing them to generate data in different patient populations in parallel.

GSK is pursuing longer-acting HIV therapies because patients prefer them to daily oral tablets and because they may help reduce the risk associated with missed doses. The company currently markets two-month injectable treatments and expects a final readout for a four-month treatment regimen in 2027, followed by a planned launch in 2028. GSK is also developing a six-month treatment option. According to Brown, 90% of patients in GSK’s SOLAR study preferred long-acting injectables to oral therapies. She said more than 30% of GSK’s U.S. HIV business has already shifted to long-acting injectables.

GSK’s current treatment combination includes CABENUVA and rilpivirine. Brown said the new chemical entity patent for CABENUVA expires in 2031, but GSK has patent applications pending that could extend protection for combinations into 2035 and potentially the 2040s. Newer six-month assets, VH-184 and VH-499, would carry new patent estates, she said.

Clinic capacity for administering injections remains a constraint in the U.S., Brown said. However, moving patients from two-month to four-month dosing could effectively double available treatment capacity. She added that longer-acting HIV products remain profitable, though the current CABENUVA-rilpivirine combination has some gross-margin pressure due to payments to Janssen for rilpivirine. On...