After resigning amid a crisis of investor confidence in her ability to genuinely steer the drugmaker to £40bn in revenue by the end of the decade, Emma Walmsley handed over the chief executive role at the start of the year to GSK's chief commercial officer, Luke Miels.
The Australian, known for his knack for small acquisitions of promising assets that had flown under the radar - including Tebipenem, an antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infections, and Momelotinib, a drug for myelofibrosis - did not take long to make his mark: this morning, GSK announced it would acquire Rapt Therapeutics for $2.2bn.
Based in the United States, Rapt is primarily developing RPT904, an antibody that could prove effective against food allergies and chronic spontaneous urticaria - two therapeutic markets with significant unmet needs. However, the molecule has not yet moved beyond the clinical trial stage. It will therefore be up to GSK to deliver by bringing it to market.
The deal, announced barely three weeks after Miels took office, in any case reflects the sense of urgency at GSK, as shareholders press the company to be more proactive in its acquisition-led growth strategy and its search for new avenues of expansion.
It is also bang in line with the British group's strategic tradition, which has long tended to prefer small, targeted buyouts of high-potential biotechs rather than the mega-mergers recently seen at Pfizer, Sanofi, AstraZeneca and Novartis.
Emma Walmsley, who led the group's strategic pivot by overseeing the split from Haleon - the consumer healthcare division she once ran, via a spin-off in the summer of 2022 - as well as the successful expansion of the vaccines franchise and the gradual winding down of litigation liabilities linked to Zantac, is in fact paying the price for a growth stall that the group's shareholders no longer saw an end to.
Having taken the helm at GSK in 2017, the former L'Oréal executive was unable to halt the stagnation in revenue - or rather its sharp erosion once adjusted for inflation - nor the decline in operating profit - nor the cut to the dividend. After a string of false starts and dashed hopes, GSK had largely returned to its role as the poor relation of Europe's pharmaceutical sector.
The group, which is largely criticised for its lack of initiative in oncology, is preparing to face a series of patent expiries in its HIV franchise - a fifth of consolidated revenue - by the end of the decade. These concerns have left the shares trading at operating-profit multiples below their historical average.
With 19 phase 3 R&D programs, hope nonetheless remains. A few weeks ago, the group also reported strong initial results from clinical trials of its hepatitis B treatment - a market of 250 million patients.
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