EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Efficient risk management is capable of creating bigger rewards to organisational

performance by enhancing productivity and reducing the impact of such risks. The
identification of risks is a pivotal step in the risk management process. This report
examines the key environmental factors that pose risk to GlaxoSmithKline. The
PESTLE and Five-Forces frameworks are used to for the external environmental
analysis of GSK. The PESTLE analysis is focused on GSK’s 2021 annual report. Most
of the environmental factors affecting GSK is related to the effects of Covid-19 at that
time.

EXTERNAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AFFECTING GSK

PESTLE is a strategic planning tool used to assess the impact of political, economic,
social, technological, environmental and legal factors on an organisation. It involves the
critical consideration of the external environmental factors of the company before
designing and executing projects. It is a good way of ensuring that one has captured all
potential risks and issues. PESTLE Analysis is an analytical tool for strategic business
planning. PESTLE is a strategic framework for understanding external influences on a
company or on any project (Rastogi & Trivedi, 2016).

Another dynamic was provided by Porter (1980). This tool focused on structural analysis
of an industry. Porter (1980) named the tool Porter's Five Forces analysis. He posited
five external business environmental factors affecting companies – Competition in the
industry, potential of new entrants into the industry, power of suppliers, power of
customers and Threat of substitute products.

GSK AND PESTLE ANALYSIS

Given the reopening of the global economy, driven by healthcare innovation, events in
the year 2021 gave GSK a clear demonstration of the contribution our industry could
make to the world. As the pandemic continued, collaborations between companies,
governments, regulators and international organisations brought new vaccines and
medicines to the world faster than ever. Regulatory processes got faster, and
companies invested in R&D to deliver new products and expanded manufacturing
capacity. The rollout of vaccine programmes reopened the global economy after months
of shutdown (Annual report 2021). Using the PESTLE framework, this impacted GSK
economically, politically, legally, socially and environmentally. The economic effect is
explained by the global need for vaccines. Economies worldwide were threatened by
recession and there were various unconfirmed projections about the growth of global
economies. Healthcare spending rose and pharmaceutical companies were required to
work faster to produce vaccines. The political impact is explained by the removal of
restriction in the trade of pharmaceutical materials. Countries all over the world also
received free vaccine grants from the US and UK governments. There were various
legislative efforts to address drug pricing in the US throughout the year and pricing
became principal in attempts to pass the $1.75 trillion social safety and climate package
(Build Back Better Act) towards the end of the year (Annual report 2021).
The European pharmaceutical reforms also took some part in impacting GSK. The
reform focused on four pillars: covering access, competitiveness and innovation, crisis
preparedness and a strong EU voice in the world. The review is also looking at
improved regulatory procedures and the vulnerability of supply of medicines.

Another issue impacting socially and technologically on GSK is the changing needs of
the market. There is an increasing global demand for preventive and therapeutic health
solutions and the way healthcare is delivered worldwide is changing. This is caused by
ageing populations. The acceleration of digital health and telemedicine have disrupted
the delivery of healthcare as patients are managing their own healthcare at home. The
global digital health market is forecast to reach $484 billion in 2025 at a compound
annual growth rate of 25%. (Business Wire, 2021). Patients are becoming more
involved with their own healthcare, and companies are implementing more ‘patient-
centric’ approaches, focused on patient outcomes, patient satisfaction and user
experience. Forecasts suggest that the global population will grow to 8.5 billion by 2030,
from 7.7 billion in 2019, despite the pandemic decreasing life expectancy in some
countries in 2020-21. The number of senior citizens over 65 years old is set to double
between 2019 and 2050 (UN, 2019). More people are living in urban areas, improving in
standard of living and living to an advanced age. A very good example is China, whose
middle class is the fastest growing in the world. It is projected that 1.2 billion people will
be in the middle class by 2027. (Homi & Meagan, 2020).

This change in demographics will cause rising demand for healthcare. GSK in their
annual report said they could respond to with their diverse portfolio spanning infectious
diseases, HIV, oncology, immunology and respiratory disease. They aim to positively
impact the health of at least 2.5 billion people over the next decade with their products.
In line with their Innovation priority, they are investing in a pipeline of vaccines and
specialty medicines that will tackle the problem of changing healthcare needs. They
believe that new technologies will enable the earlier detection of diseases and they will
develop medicines that will target treatments to groups of patients who are most likely to
benefit. In vaccines, technological innovation is allowing them to address medical needs
across all demographics.

In their 2021 annual report, GSK claims that they are at the forefront of advances in
science and technology, working to create innovative solutions to all kinds of healthcare
challenges to meet the market needs discovered by modern medicine. Advanced
technology platforms are central to their R&D approach. They have expertise in AI and
functional genomics. The dedicated global in-house Artificial Intelligence team is using
machine learning to unlock the potential of complex genetic data with new levels of
speed, precision and scale. They use diverse platform technologies from adjuvants that
improve vaccine effectiveness through to Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA)
technology. These are at the heart of our pipeline differentiation. GSK is partnering with
teams from the cutting edge of fields within and outside pharmaceuticals to help steer
new science and develop therapeutics. They seem ready to take advantage of
technological innovations to improve their products.

United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) 2021 was a pivotal point for
international climate change solutions. Some of the outcomes were to build climate
resilient and sustainable low carbon health systems and achieve transition to zero-
emission of carbon. This created an environmental impact on GSK. GSK, in their 2021
annual report, pledged to net zero impact on climate and a net positive impact on nature
by 2030. In 2021, GSK reduced their operational carbon emissions by 15% from 2020,
primarily through increased use of renewable energy. In September 2021, GSK
announced a £50 million investment in UK and US manufacturing sites to secure
renewable power generation. This includes new wind turbines and a 20-year power
purchase agreement to supply solar electricity for their Irvine facility in Scotland, and
solar energy for their Oak Hill facility in New York.

GSK AND PORTER’S FIVE FORCES MODEL

Competitive Rivalry
The pharmaceuticals industry is highly competitive. This industry made about $1.4USD
revenue in 2021 (Matej 2021). With strict government regulations, high costs of
research and highly competitive products in the market. There is a tussle for market
share based on innovation, intellectual property rights and patents. Although ownership
of patents and specific rights neutralizes competition in the market in many cases, there
still exists an avenue for higher levels of competition. GSK holds a global market
capitalisation of $71.03 billion, significantly lower than the $440,04 billion of Johnson
and Johnson, the market leader (Companies Market Cap 2023).

Threat of Substitutes
There are many substitutes to GSK in the pharmaceuticals market. Generic brand
medication is often seen as the main substitute for products by the pharmaceuticals
industry (Barney, 2006). Generic brands are a substitute because they keep the prices
of brand name medicines competitive. However, generic medicines are not always
available because of patents. Branded medication and generics are the same kinds of
product delivered to customers in a similar way. The major difference is the price
(Kasapi & Mihiotis, 2011).

Threat of New Entrants

Developing a new medicine is very expensive and time taking because of the amount of
research and development involved in the development. There are also heavy
regulations in the pharmaceuticals industry. Medicines and chemicals need to be
approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the countries where the
medicine is being developed, and when the medicines and chemicals are not approved,
the time and money used to develop them is lost (Kasapi & Mihiotis, 2011). The threat of
new entrants into the pharmaceutical industry is low because of the high costs required
to enter the industry. Although the economies of scale for production may not be
significant, other barriers are high (Barney, 2006).

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Suppliers of the raw materials to pharmaceuticals hold a certain amount of power but it
is not too high. Pharmaceuticals usually own manufacturing plants so that suppliers
cannot charge exorbitant prices on their own plants, and it is unlikely that they will make
threats to take their business somewhere else. Thus, the threat from suppliers in the
pharmaceutical industry is not considered significantly bigger than that in other
industries as long as there is no considerable threat from the raw material suppliers
(Carter, 2005).

Bargaining Power of Buyers

The consumers in the pharmaceuticals industry include doctors, patients, hospitals,
drug stores, and pharmacists. The significant indicators of the threat of buyers in the
pharmaceutical industry they include: the number of buyers, product differentiation and
product significance of a buyer’s final cost (Barney, 2006). Buyers are not a big threat to
the pharmaceuticals industry because firms spend most of their research and
development on new patent drugs. The industry has many buyers and given that
competition normally occurs among consumers the power of buyers in terms of the
number of buyers in the industry is relatively small.

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

The past decades have seen tremendous technological discoveries and breakthroughs
in virtually every sector of the world economy and is anticipated to have a
transformative effect in business and management (Sheela et al, 2021). These
developments, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are advanced
computational technology which have driven automation, prediction and consequential
increase in efficiency and have dissipated previous constraints to the collection and
processing of large amounts of data. AI has become a major driver of business
development in recent years. The use of AI technology in various industries has
improved efficiency, cost savings and decision making.

(AI) is the simulation of human intelligence by computers. It is programming machines

to think and learn like humans. This process involves gathering information, creating
rules for the use of the information and drawing perfect or near-perfect conclusions and
self-correction (Kit-Kay & Mallikarjuna, 2019). Machine Learning (ML) is a field in AI
which uses statistical methods to create the ability of machines to learn with or without
being programmed to do so. It is a method of teaching computers to learn from data ML
has three categories – supervised learning, unsupervised learning and reinforcement
learning.

One astounding example of AI in business is its use in e-commerce. AI-powered

personalization and product recommendations have been shown to increase sales and
customer loyalty. For instance, Amazon uses AI algorithms to personalize product
recommendations for each customer based on their browsing and purchase history.
This has led to a significant increase in targeted sales for the company (Mayinka et. Al.
2016). Another example is the use of AI in financial services. Banks and other financial
institutions use AI to discover and avert fraud, improve risk management processes,
and automate repetitive tasks. AI-powered bots have also become popular in recent
years, allowing for more efficient and cost-effective investment management (Daugherty
& Wilson, 2018). In pharmaceuticals and healthcare, AI is used to improve patient
results of drug administration and reduce costs. AI algorithms can be used to analyze
medical images, such as X-rays and CT scans, to detect disorders and conditions more
accurately and with greater speed. AI-powered chatbots are also being used to assist
patients in finding the right medical care without having to visit the hospital for tests
(Chollet, 2018). AI is reshaping business management, economy, and society by
transforming experiences and relationships amongst stakeholders.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BUSINESS

AI has been thriving, mainly due to considerable improvements in the computing power
of machines and the access to large volumes of data (Pwc, 2019). This boom is the
consequence of three breakthroughs - the introduction of a much more sophisticated
class of algorithms; the arrival on the market of low-cost graphics processors capable of
performing large amounts of calculations in a few milliseconds; and the availability of
very large, correctly marked up databases allowing for more sophisticated learning of
intelligent systems (Pwc, 2019).

AI and its branches (machine learning, deep learning, neural network, virtual assistant
and others) are essentially restructuring the business and organizational processes of
companies (Pwc, 2019). In fact, AI has already disrupted the structure of organizations
and the relation with their environment. AI has shaped a new way of managing
information, and this poses both a challenge and an immense opportunity for
organizations; but seizing this opportunity requires a revamp in culture, mentality and
skills (Di Francescomarino & Maggi, 2020) For example, IBM offers Watson solution
(named after Thomas Watson [1913–1994], former IBM manager), which is an AI
computer program designed to answer natural language questions in a variety of real-
world activities (marketing, management, justice, healthcare) (Kohn et al., 2014). One of
its applications is the Watson Health service, which offers healthcare practitioners the
opportunity to use current medical data and their patient data to personalize patient
care, including the pros and cons of a patient (Kohn et al., 2014).
In the context of globalization of markets, innovation, product/service quality and
customer needs have led companies to integrate AI into their managerial approach
(Bolwijn et al., 2018). This evolution of the economic environment has resulted in
increased competitiveness, which imply a modernization of the information service of
organizations. Also, Organizations have always aspired to assign more tasks to
machines in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency. It started with assembly lines,
which replaced human labour in mechanical and repetitive tasks previously known as
“manual labour” (Dopico et al., 2016).

More recently, the challenge of the modern organizations lies in their ability to innovate
in the face of an extremely dynamic markets in which competitive positions are
constantly evolving (Stank et al., 2019). The globalization of the economy intensifies
competition and requires more sophistication to be compiled to stay relevant in the
market. But, in a world where technology is a strategic asset, it is clear that the
organization’s ability to integrate AI to its processes is crucial to its competitiveness
(Kuusisto, 2017). Furthermore, AI innovations continue to contribute to the benefits of IT
in organizations. AI is an indispensable tool in the evolution of processes, optimization
and flexibility of operations in organizations (Kelly et al., 2019). Given the rapid
technological advances, particularly in AI, the idea of entrusting more complex tasks to
machines no longer seems as farfetched as it was several years ago.

It is expected that organizations and their leaders will increasingly deal with “economy
of power” where the search for a position on the market will guide any organization’s
action planning to safeguard its decision autonomy, strategic leeway and increased
competitive advantage (Liu et al., 2015). Such a position implies not only a competitive
advantage in the market but also resources that allow the valuation of that advantage.
Therefore, researchers, practitioners and organizations are keen to respond to these
questions: how does AI and its capabilities contribute to improving the performance of
organizations (Farhanghi et al.2013)? How does AI influence business value
improvement in IT-enabled transformation projects in an organization (Abijith and
Wamba, 2012; Benner, 2009)?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

One fascinating aspect of Artificial intelligence as relating to every organisation is
Business Intelligence (BI). BI is about making predictions and decisions about the
outcomes business depending on some particular input. (Jourda et al. 2008). Existing
data is analysed by a system referred to as a Business Intelligence system (BIS). A BIS
is a system that analyses and visualizes BI for managers. There exists a big variety of
Business Intelligence Systems, which has different area of usage, depending on the on
what the management of the company using it is trying to achieve.

Nearly all of the data generated by a company is usable by a Business Intelligence

system (Reinschmidt and Francoise 2000). It is important for managers and analysts to
understand what data to extract, to analyze and to use. With the right data in the right
hands, the future of a company can be predicted. This creates a drive for companies to
improve this process, to be able to anticipate changes in the market and how to apply
these data to improve on their processes and to proactively meet the needs of the
market.

Business intelligence has several uses in business and management. (Reinschmidt and
Francoise 2000). It can be used as a tool to increase revenues, cut costs and improve
the competitive prowess of an organisation. It can also be used as a simple tool to show
an overview a company, which can be especially usable in companies that conduct
business globally, since they need to segment their markets and understand their
differences, or it can be used as a tool to monitor all the products a company produces.
This is particularly useful for companies that promote internal competition amongst their
product offerings. Business Intelligence Systems are powerful tools for cutting costs
across various departments such as IT, maintenance, administration and management.
(Jourdan et al. 2008).

Today, Artificial Intelligence is broadly used for analyzing company data. One way of
using these systems is to create algorithms that allow computers learn about the data
and how they are used to predict what outcome the user wants and warns the user
when there is a variation from the intended output. (Athey 2018). There is a wide variety
of machine learning methods which include Linear Regression, Underfitting and
Overfitting in polynomial estimations, generalizations and more, depending on what kind
of learning is needed, and the possible uses of the ML method. (Athey 2018). These
methods have different approaches, where the data need to be unstructured, semi-
structured, or structured. Regardless of the machine learning method, AI is created.

AI AND ORGANISATIONAL ETHICS, LAWS AND REGULATIONS

Ethics
To understand right and wrong, deep and difficult investigations into philosophical
issues are required. Ethics are deeply connected with communication and language.
Humans, as well as animals practice ethics and have raised ethical standards.
Communication is inevitable for good ethical assumptions, and without communication,
ethics might fail (Singer 2011).

Machine Ethics
Machine ethics is a very wide concept, that often covers a big area of smaller ethical
districts, such as computational ethics. An application of machine ethics is to robot
ethics (Segun 2021). (Hardware) robots are created and programmed to be able to do
humanoid tasks, such as serving food, cleaning a car and baking a pizza. How a robot
does this can therefore become controversial, as such as what an autonomous vehicle
should do when it faces a decision on saving the driver or a pedestrian. In the case that
it has to choose between whom to save and who to kill in a case of a car crash ethical
standards have to be created for robots (Arvid, 2022).

Einar (2018) reported that few people cared about information integrity before 1945.
Information integrity was almost never discussed between 1945 and 1960 with focus
being on human rights and fundamental freedom, although Americans and Swedes had
a high trust in data collectors. In 1961, the drawbacks of information gathering became
more apparent. Connected to a turbulent and changing world, people came to
understand that some sort of data regulation was required. In Sweden, the Data
Inspection Committee (DIC) became the regulatory body for data integrity (Arvid, 2022).

In 1980, the perspective changed from automated systems to database capabilities

(Einar, 2018). More recently, the volume of data, transmission speed and accessibility
were brought into light, with focus on efficiency. In the US, the Privacy Protection Act
was founded. Europe created several laws that focused on protecting the individual.
Beginning in 1990, the modern internet and information sharing changed the way
people used information. With the terrorist crimes in USA and Great Britain, secret
information gathering from the general public became accepted, thus intruding on
individuals’ rights of data protection. In Sweden, the law of FRA (FRA-lagen) enabled
Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) to wire-tap phones for national security purposes. Close
to the new millennium, a number of different social interaction forums has gathered
popularity, creating social media (Edosomwan et al. 2011). This began a change in how
people communicated and made social media accessible for many people.

With the introduction and spread of social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and
twitter, a new paradigm was formed, and the information integrity changed once again,
but now at a faster pace. In 6 years, the number of users of social media in the US
changed from 30% to 75%, which abruptly changed how information was used, stored
and shared. More social media users preferred to communicate via social media than
have a physical meet. In Sweden, this phased out with the Swedish DIC forcing every
owner of a database to register their database at DIC. It was estimated that 5000
databases would be registered the following years, but the amount was underestimated
by a factor of 3. 15000 databases were registered the following years. In 2018, the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was instituted in the European Union (EU).
This changed how all nations in the then EU consumed, stored and shared personal
data (Arvid, 2022).

AI is a very useful tool for law and legal science. In AI there is a subfield called “artificial
intelligence and law” which aims to apply knowledge in AI to solve or at least facilitate
solution of some legal problems. Simultaneously, tools and techniques developed in
order to solve specific problems in law are further utilized by AI (Alžběta, 2017). Legal
sciences recognise usefulness of AI, especially for the purpose of legal reasoning, a
general concept that refers to a process of forming and providing a justifiable answer to
a particular legal question, such as what conclusion should be made at the end of a
trial, or whether and to what extent a person is required to pay a certain tax. AI
applications can assist in legal reasoning for example by examining databases of legal
texts and identifying which cases are relevant to an ongoing judicial proceeding. This
tool significantly simplifies legal research as it is able to filter out irrelevant information
(Sunstein, 2001).

AI is already deployed to automate online dispute resolution in order to solve

disagreements between parties that enter into a contract for instance via eBay. In the
future, algorithmic decision-making is presumed not only to assist legal practitioners but
to replace them in certain types of cases. This, however, raises questions about
transparency of these proceedings as algorithms operate in a concealed manner and,
therefore, prevent control. Algorithms could be checked for possible biases. For
instance, by examining them with help of test cases. Although algorithms themselves
lack transparency, ironically, they can be used in order to improve transparency in in
organizational proceedings through improved data analysis (Glicksman et al, 2017). The
ability of AI to analyze large volumes of data is used for example also in digital
forensics. Apart from examining large amounts of evidentiary data to reduce their
number or find inconspicuous relationships among them, AI is also used for predictions,
such as for determining which part fraud case will offer the best opportunity of
recovering a forensic sample (Adderley et al, 2007).
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APPENDICES
GLAXOSMITHKLINE – BACKGROUND
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a British multinational producing pharmaceutical and
biotechnology product. GSK a fully focused biopharma company which prioritise
innovation in vaccines and specialty medicines, maximising the increasing opportunities
to prevent and treat disease. At the heart of this is their R&D, GSK focuses on the
science of the immune system, human genetics and advanced technologies, and their
world-leading capabilities in vaccines and medicines development. GSK specialises in
the production of vaccines, specialty medicines and general medicines. GSK was
established in January 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham.
Headquarters is situated in London. (CNN Money, 2000).

In 2021, GSK made a group turnover of £34.1 billion – £17.7 from Pharmaceuticals,
£6.8 billion from vaccine production and distribution and £9.6 billion from consumer
healthcare (Annual Report, 2021).

Their history started in 1715, when Apothecary Silvanus Bevan opened Plough Court
pharmacy, offering medical advice and medicinal products. William Allen joined in 1792
as an office clerk, becoming a partner in 1795. Allen became a renowned medical
professional and also a founding member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 1841.
The Plough Court pharmacy became Allen & Hanburys in 1956. The company was
eventually acquired by Glaxo Laboratories Ltd, one of GSK’s major legacy companies.

In 1830 the Smith & Gilbert drug house opened in Philadelphia, USA. Gilbert withdrew
and John K. Smith’s younger brother George joined, helping to build a successful drug
wholesaling business. Their nephew Mahlon Smith began managing the company in
1870. Its bookkeeper, Mahlon Kline had joined as partner to form Smith, Kline & Co. In
1891 they acquired French, Richards & Co. to form Smith, Kline & French Co.

Former shepherd, Thomas Beecham, opened his first shop in the north of England in
1848. He developed the recipe for Beecham’s laxative pills before building what was
claimed to be the first factory in the UK with electricity in 1887. A provider of healthcare
products across the UK, Beecham eventually diversified into pharmaceutical research
with a focus on antibiotics, merging with SmithKline Beckman Corp. to form SmithKline
Beecham plc.
In 1873, Joseph Nathan, a Londoner, established general trading company Joseph
Nathan & Co. in New Zealand. Investing their profits in land used for dairy farms, the
Nathan family found a way to dry thousands of litres of fresh milk, selling the product
under the ‘Defiance’ brand before settling on ‘Glaxo’ in 1906. Joseph Nathan & Co. Ltd.
was bought out by its subsidiary Glaxo Laboratories Ltd. in 1947. In 1880, American
pharmacists Henry S. Wellcome and Silas M. Burroughs founded Burroughs Wellcome
& Co in London.
Focusing strongly on biological experimentation with vaccines, The Wellcome
Physiological Research Laboratories were established in 1894. Within a decade the
Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories to study infectious diseases of the tropical
regions were founded in Sudan, including a floating mobile lab with pathology services
on the White Nile. As technological advancements were revolutionising the wider world,
their legacy companies were also expanding, developing and selling new products on
an increasingly global scale. It was a period of landmark scientific breakthroughs,
including the discovery of insulin and penicillin.
Their legacy companies supported a wave of exploration expeditions in the early
twentieth century. Burroughs Wellcome & Co.’s medical chests accompanied the first
transatlantic air crossing and expeditions to the Amazon, Arctic, Antarctic and Mount
Everest. In 1921 insulin was discovered as a way of managing diabetes. Legacy
companies Burroughs Wellcome and Allen & Hanburys were among the first to
reproduce the hormone for commercial use in the UK. By 1923, Allen & Hanburys were
producing 95% of the country’s insulin. However, by 1924, Burroughs Wellcome had
modified their processes to produce insulin on a large scale from cow pancreas.
Joseph Nathan & Co.’s first chemist, Harry Jephcott, licensed a method to produce a
Vitamin D supplement in 1924. They sold it as Ostelin - their first pharmaceutical
product. The research side of the business grew and in 1935 a subsidiary company,
Glaxo Laboratories Ltd was established. By 1947 Glaxo had surpassed its parent in
terms of sales and product range and bought out Joseph Nathan & Co.
In 1924, Henry Wellcome combined Burroughs Wellcome & Co. with his charitable and
research pursuits to form the Wellcome Foundation Ltd. Upon his death in 1936,
ownership of the foundation passed to the Wellcome Trust. The Trust’s first chairman
was Sir Henry Dale, former director of the Wellcome Physiological Research
Laboratories. In 1936, Dale was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his landmark
discovery relating to the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. Penicillin was
developed into an antibiotic in the late 1930s. By 1944, 80% of UK penicillin production
was being routed through Glaxo’s Greenford site. In 1945 Beecham Group established
their research arm, Beecham Research Laboratories, with a focus on antibiotics. Twelve
years later Beecham scientists discovered the penicillin nucleus – the core of the
molecule, known as 6-APA. From this nucleus they determined they could develop new,
even more effective penicillin.
At Burroughs Wellcome & Co., the Wellcome Foundation’s US subsidiary, Dr. George
Hitchings’ research team made a series of important discoveries over a thirty-year
period. Starting in the early 1950s, these included drugs for malaria and their first
oncology drug for leukaemia. Drugs for gout, viral infections and to prevent organ
transplantation rejection followed.
Three of their legacy companies, Glaxo Laboratories, the Wellcome Foundation and
Recherche et Industrie Thérapeutiques of Belgium, sold inactivated polio vaccines from
1956. In the early 1960s oral polio vaccines were developed, drops of which were
traditionally given on sugar cubes. The introduction of polio vaccines globally helped to
eradicate two strains of the virus. The remaining wild strain is subject to a global
eradication order from the WHO.
After Glaxo Laboratories Ltd. acquired Allen & Hanburys Ltd, a new R&D team led to
their first asthma medicine being introduced in 1969, followed by the first steroid-based
preventer drug three years later. In subsequent decades improved molecules for
relievers and preventers were introduced, with the first inhaler to contain both launched
in 1997. Their most recent dry powder inhaler device in 2013 was worked on by over
200 scientists and engineers.
In the early 1980s the team at Burroughs Wellcome & Co. (USA) dedicated themselves
to finding an effective treatment for HIV. Marty St. Clair discovered one in 1984, and it
was made available to patients in early 1987 after stunning trial results in participants. In
the mid-1980s, the Wellcome Trust publicly sold shares of the Wellcome Foundation
Ltd. to form Wellcome plc. In 1995 the Trust sold the remaining shares to Glaxo plc,
forming the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, Glaxo Wellcome plc. In 1989,
SmithKline Beckman Corp. merged with Beecham Group plc to form SmithKline
Beecham plc.
Through the 1990s and 2000s they continued to develop and launch single and
combination HIV medications, as well as medicines for HIV-related problems such as
AIDS-related pneumonia.
In January 2000, it was announced that Glaxo Wellcome plc was to merge with
SmithKline Beecham plc to form GlaxoSmithKline plc.
In 2009, a unique partnership with Pfizer led to the launch of ViiV Healthcare, a
company focused on delivering advanced treatment and care for HIV communities.
Using the expertise of both companies and Shionogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical
company who joined in 2012, ViiV Healthcare now has a portfolio of sixteen HIV
treatments and preventative drugs.
Their legacy research on malaria dates back over a century. In 2014 they submitted a
file to the European Medicines Agency for the world’s first malaria candidate vaccine.
Since 2018, the WHO has piloted the vaccine in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
They have produced tuberculosis vaccines for children for over 60 years. In 2020, after
positive trials in adolescents and adults a new tuberculosis vaccine candidate was
licensed to the Gates Medical Research Institution.
The acquisition of Tesaro in 2019 meant they further strengthened their oncology
portfolio and pipeline, with new treatments for ovarian, multiple myeloma and
endometrial cancer.
Their research into immuno-oncology, a type of therapy that uses the body’s own
immune system to treat cancer, marks an incredibly exciting period for the next phase of
GSK’s commitment to helping advance the field of oncology care.
GSK is reborn in 2022 as a company focused solely on the development of new
medicines and vaccines - one where they unite science, technology and talent to get
ahead of disease together.
Company website, gsk.com
FIGURES

Figure 1: Porter’s Five Forces Model (Marketlinks, 2023)

Figure 2: PESTLE Analysis (ECMS 2018)