Andrew Philip Witty
Management
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and welcome to today's call. I'd like to particularly welcome people joining us from the East Coast after what's been a very rough few days. And we hope very much that things settle back down and the disruption is resolved quickly. I'm actually speaking to you from our headquarters in Singapore. Simon Dingemans is joining us on the call from London. I'm in Singapore. I spend a lot of time in the emerging markets. It's one of our key areas in which we've chosen to invest aggressively over the last 4 years to help rebalance the group sales profile. And that's evident in this quarter with a very -- with a further strong performance in the region, helping offset some of the very obvious pressures we're facing in Western markets, particularly in Europe. Emerging market/Asia Pac sales grew 11% in Q3, which I think puts it very much at the top of the industry growth rate for emerging markets, and it's a clear acceleration compared with the early part of the year. Particularly strong performances in India, up 9%, China up 15%. And within the Chinese business, our Seretide business was up 46% for the quarter. I'm also encouraged by the continued strengthening of our business in the United States, while our reported sales were down in what is a noisy quarter with several discontinued or disposed products and some generics really hiding the underlying sales growth of 2%. Respiratory in particular performed well. Business up 7%. Advair was up 5% during the quarter. And that represents the fifth consecutive quarter where we've seen an improvement in the underlying performance of Advair, both as our shares hold well and the overall market starts to improve. Newer products in our specialty franchise has also continued to perform well, Votrient up 50%, Promacta up 50%. And I think in all of our key areas, the promoted products, we continue to see good strength and certainly continued evidence that our new commercial model in the U.S. has vetted in nicely and opening up new customer opportunities. We also saw another very strong performance from our global Consumer Healthcare business with sales up 5% in the quarter. In particular, India up 16%, China up 16%. And across all of our key categories, all the way through from Maxinutrition, Panadol, Lucozade, Horlicks, Sensodyne, all reporting very strong performances. At the group level, however, you, obviously, will have seen our reported sales were down 5%. As expected, these were impacted by prior year comparisons, specifically the substantial sales of Cervarix in Japan and flu vaccine in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2011, which we're not going to repeat. This alone accounted for 3 of the 5 points. We also lost a further 2 points as a result of the product disposals we have undertaken in the last 12 months to simplify both the consumer and the pharmaceutical portfolio. If you adjust for just those 2 items, group sales in the quarter were broadly flat. And again, looking through the noise of the quarter, it continues to reassure me of the gradual strengthening of the business across our various business groups. An exception to that is the clear impact to the sales line from the pressure we faced in Europe. And disappointingly, we didn't see an improvement in pricing pressure. Third quarter sales here declined 9%, 7 points of price, 2 points of decline in volume. Absent a further deterioration in Europe, our expectations for the fourth quarter, obviously, sales grow again in particular with further momentum in emerging markets, Asia Pac and the completion of multiple preordered vaccine tenders. On this basis, we now expect full year sales to be broadly in line with 2011 on a constant currency basis. We also expect to see an improving picture on margins in the fourth quarter with additional cost reductions and phasing of operating expenses expected to benefit earnings. Turning to new product flow and the pipeline. Progress remains very positive. In fact, we have seen better late-stage output this year than in any equivalent periods for the company. We've now completed 6 Phase III programs during the year, with 3 products already filed, 2 Oncology and 1 Respiratory, and 3 more ready to file around the end of the year, including new treatments for HIV, diabetes and COPD. Overall, of the 15 products we originally highlighted back in February of 2011 with Phase III data expected before the end of 2012, 12 have already reported some or all of their data. 10 of those have been positive, only 2 have been negative. It's worth noting, I think, that all of that has been achieved with a broadly flat R&D budget, 2007 to 2012. You may have also noted in today's press release that we've confirmed our plans to review the progress we've made in the advanced pipeline and investor event on December 3, where we'll really bring together all the various data and news that's been presented at various scientific congresses during 2012 and give you a comprehensive view of the advanced pipeline as many of these assets move into filing and hopefully head towards launch as we move into 2013 and '14. These assets are the forefront of a pipeline with real strength, and if all goes well, over the next 3 years, we think we will launch 15 new products from this advanced portfolio. We also have continued to make progress to improve the returns in R&D. And in the quarter, I draw your attention to both the acquisition of Human Genome Science and the new structure agreed between ViiV and Shionogi. Both transactions will not only help with simplifying operations but also substantially increase our share of the economics. On key new product assets, these are already launched in the case of Benlysta or imminent in the case of dolutegravir. Finally, we remain committed to improving returns to shareholders. And today, we announced another 6% rise in the dividends to 18p per share and confirmed our expectation for share repurchases for the year of between GBP 2 billion to GBP 2.5 billion. I'd like now to hand over to Simon in London to take you through a little bit more detail the numbers behind the release.