Earnings Labs

GSK plc (GSK)

Q3 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 25, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the GSK analyst/investor call hosted by Emma Walmsley and Simon Dingemans. My name is Matthew; I'm your event manager. During the presentation, your lines will remain on listen-only. I'd like to advise all parties, this conference is being recorded. And now I'd like to hand over to Emma. Please go ahead.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and a warm welcome to this call in which we're reporting our third quarter results. Hosting the call with me today is Simon Dingemans, our Chief Financial Officer, who's going to talk you through the detail of the results in just a few moments. As I said when I first spoke to you at our Q1 results earlier this year, Simon and I will be joined by different members of our management team on our quarterly results calls. So I hope you'll find this helpful for your questions, and it will give you a sense of the GSK team as well as different aspects of the company. With us today are Patrick Vallance, Head of R&D; David Redfern, Chairman of our HIV business and Chief Strategy Officer; Brian McNamara, CEO of our Consumer Health business; and Luc Debruyne, President of GSK Vaccines. Before I hand over to Simon, let me make just a few comments on our progress this quarter. In terms of performance, this quarter we've seen continued progress, with sales of £7.8 billion, up 2% at constant exchange rates, and up 4% actual rates. Total earnings per share for the quarter were 24.8p, plus 49% at actual rates, plus 46% at constant exchange rates. Adjusted EPS were 32.5p, flat for the quarter and up 2% year to date, both at constant exchange rates. And we remain on track for our 2017 guidance of adjusted earnings per share growth of 3% to 5% constant exchange rates. We set a dividend of 19p this quarter and continue to expect to deliver 80p for the full year. Sales growth in the quarter reflected continued momentum in our new products across HIV, our meningitis vaccines Bexsero and Menveo, and in Respiratory from our Ellipta portfolio and Nucala,…

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thank you, Emma. As a reminder, our earnings release provides an extensive amount of information, so I'm going to focus on the major points, our expectations for the remainder of the year, and some comments on next year, and comparators to take note of for your modeling. Overall, the group's results for the quarter were in line with our expectations, and we remain on track to deliver our 2017 earnings guidance for adjusted EPS growth of 3% to 5% at constant exchange rates. Our results reflect continued strong operational delivery and further investment behind the key future growth drivers in each of our three businesses. The commercial environment remains challenging, especially in our Inhaled Respiratory business, where we face a highly competitive market that we expect will result in continued pricing pressures through 2018 beyond any Advair generic. Additionally, our Consumer business has seen a material slowdown in the global growth of its key categories to a rate of around 2% this year, compared to the 3% to 4% or so that we've seen over the last few years. While in the medium term we see some improvement from this year's levels, the outlook for our categories is probably now more on a global trend of 2% to 3%, given the greater pricing pressures, competition from new entrants, and tougher emerging markets that we're seeing. This is what we've factored into the revised outlook for our Consumer business that we gave you at Q2. Despite this market backdrop, which is affecting particularly our Pharma and Consumer businesses, we believe it's the right thing to do for the long term to continue making investments across the group to drive share for our new products in this more competitive environment. In addition, we are stepping up investment in preparations behind three important…

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Simon. So we're now going to open up for Q&A. And again, as I said, I've got the team here ready to take your questions. So, operator, first question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your first question is from the line of Graham Parry of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Graham Parry - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. So firstly on Tivicay and Triumeq, we've seen a trend towards faster growth in Tivicay versus Triumeq recently in new-to-brand prescriptions. Can you give us any insight into what you think's driving that and the extent to which is this is physicians preparing for bictegravir arrival next year by putting patients onto the backbone contained in the Gilead product? Secondly, could you let us know how you're positioned on payer and hospital formularies with Tivicay and Triumeq into next year? Is there anything you can do to lock out bictegravir by contracting at this stage, particularly with hospitals and providers, which can be quite important in this market? And thirdly, on the Pfizer Consumer business, you'd previously said you'd be interested in looking at this, and Pfizer's now announced its review of that business. But you've always indicated it would be more likely you would offer to bring that into a JV-type structure rather than an outright purchase, given balance sheet considerations. To what extent is your JV partner interested in increasing its capital commitment or being diluted? And then finally, comments on 2018 regarding increasing R&D in Advair generics, the savings (25:45) decrease seems to point to a lot of margin pressure next year. So is your best guess that margins will be flat, up a bit, or down into next year? Thank you.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks very much, Graham. So I'm going to take your question on the Pfizer business, and then I'll ask Simon to comment on outlook for 2018, and obviously come to David on the two sets of questions around the HIV business. In terms of the Pfizer business, I'd first of all reiterate that our capital allocation priorities that I laid out in Q2 go completely unchanged. We did say we'd be potentially interested in building up our Consumer business; it's a business we like. We're a world leader in consumer healthcare and have a demonstrated track record of successful integrations, so you would expect us to look at any assets that complement our portfolio from a power brand or geographic footprint point of view. Although we did talk about potentially bulking up Consumer, our first focus in capital allocation was clearly around our biggest business in Pharma, and R&D within that. Nonetheless, we would be looking at it. But they only announced the process last week, so it's a bit premature – it's not even confirmed for sale – to discuss in any detail, if and how. And we would, in all cases, be very focused on driving shareholder value – you're absolutely right, that's obviously a conversation we would be having with our partners in the joint venture. And one option is structurally, that we could have a structured deal, but there are other options as well. So we'll continue to watch it, but nothing more to really add at that stage. So, Simon, do you want to comment on 2018 outlook?

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Yeah. I mean, I think, Graham, as we've touched on a few times before, at the moment an Advair generic arrives, given how profitable it is – and you can see the sort of decline we modeled into the guidance that we gave you for 2017 – that that sort of downdraft is going to be hard to withstand without shortchanging the investments that we're making for the long-term growth of the company. So it will depend partly on how steep a decline it is, which will depend on how many and what sort of supply they have. But if you assume any sort of normal analog, I think it would be very surprising if the margin didn't go down in that period while that transition was happening, and then recover out the other side. But I think that's more of a steer at this point, rather than precision. We'll have to see precisely how it unfolds.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

And it was factored into our 2020 outlook.

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Yeah. And we – back in 2015, we said somewhere between now and 2020 we'll have an Advair generic, and we've got this residual assumption of a couple of hundred million pounds of U.S. sales, so I think it's playing out with some uncertainty around timing. But the inclusion of that was very much built into our previous views.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

So, David, on HIV.

David Redfern - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Analyst

Yeah. So, Graham, on Tivicay and Triumeq, I think the first point actually, on a global basis, prescription trends continue to be very solid. In the U.S., we measure what we call core and SDR market share, and for dolutegravir overall, we're now above 26%. We started the year a bit below 23%. NBRx is just over 30%, holding very steady. And dolutegravir remains the leading integrase prescribed in the U.S., and indeed throughout the world. It is true, as you say, there is a mix effect, and there's growing demand and increasing growth rate of Tivicay compared to Triumeq. We think about 40% to 45% of Tivicay now is prescribed with Descovy, and that's obviously a popular regime. I think – I mean, from the market research we've done, of course the competitive intensity will increase next year as the competitors launch, and I'm sure at the margin there will be some doctors that may switch. But, the research we get back is, the vast majority are prescribing Tivicay because they want to prescribe the best third agent, which they view to be dolutegravir. And for patients that are well tolerated and doing well on Tivicay, we think there's every reason why they won't be switched and they can remain on their current regimes. We've seen now quite a lot of the clinical data on bictegravir. Clearly the headline is, it's not inferior. If anything, efficacy just a touch below some of the efficacy rates we've seen in the dolutegravir studies. So, I think the answer is, the competitive intensity will go up, but we feel we've got a very strong database, and very good reasons why Tivicay should continue to be prescribed. In terms of the payers, I mean, I'm not going to get into lots of detail around the tactics of that. It's a very different marketplace in a specialty area like HIV to Respiratory. We have very high, if not virtually total coverage, and I don't see any change in the dynamics with the payers in our HIV business going through 2018 and this year. The exact tactics and so forth versus Gilead, I think we'll keep confidential.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, David. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Richard Parkes with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Richard Parkes - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Firstly, on the Ellipta portfolio, obviously, Anoro and Breo were a bit below expectations this quarter. I know obviously there were some rebate adjustments there. But I'm just wondering if you could talk through what continues to surprise there. And, in addition, Breo U.S. sales seem to be trending a little bit below prescription growth. I'm wondering how much of the price pressure you're seeing is spilling over into the new portfolio and what we should expect on that Ellipta portfolio in terms of price going into 2018. Second question, I wondered if you could just comment over industry consumer and OTC trends. Obviously you've reduced your midterm guidance. 3Q was a little bit better than expected. But there seems to be a slowing across the industry, and I'm wondering if you could comment, in the U.S. in particular, whether you see that as a structural change given the impact of things like e-commerce, and how you might adjust your strategy to cope with that. Then finally, I think, a pipeline one. On the BCMA ADC antibody, I think – looks like we'll get data at ASH, by the sounds of it. We've previously seen some pretty robust responses, but with dose-limiting toxicity that looks like it might be a bit more challenging than with other new drugs like Darzalex, I'm just wondering whether you feel that really limits the drug's potential to the refractory setting and how you think about that market opportunity and how that will evolve given likely highly effective new first-line regimens that are coming through in the near-term horizon in multiple myeloma. Thanks so much.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Richard. So in a moment I'll come to Brian to comment on the Consumer sector outlook and obviously Patrick on BCMA. But just to comment first of all on Ellipta, you frame your question as what continues to surprise there. I don't think we're surprised by what's going on in the respiratory market, as we outlined also in Q2. The ongoing competitive pricing environment is something that we anticipate to continue through 2018. Simon has already mentioned the RAL (33:36) true-ups. And I might ask him to add in just a second a little bit more detail on that. But I will start with a reminder on the good performance as far as TRx, the prescription trends, are concerned in terms of the Ellipta portfolio. Breo up 74% year on year, Anoro up 70% – Anoro and Incruse – with NBRx, (34:00) of 38%, Breo NBRx at 24%. So we are seeing good growth here. And obviously what's also key is taking into account the total Ellipta portfolio and what will come when we launch Trelegy, too, which will take a bit of time to build. But once we're able to factor in the IMPACT data, we do think is going to bring us back to a place, as we gave in the outlook, where our 2020 total Respiratory sales is at least as strong as our 2015, having factored in an Advair genericization. But pricing pressure is real, and very much continuing. So, Simon, I don't know if you just want to add anything – more detail on the (34:40) -

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

No, I think the key point, Emma, is that the script trends are very, very consistent. We continue to build share. Volume is obviously the key driver. And the individual quarter-to-quarter adjustments, I wouldn't get too hung up about, because we certainly see them flow both ways. It's the big driver of the gap you're seeing, or that you highlighted, between the script trends and what you've seen in terms of reported revenue in the quarter. But the new products are moving pretty much in line with the old products in terms of the general pricing trend, and then you have this volatility position. But net-net across the whole Respiratory portfolio, which is how I'd encourage you to think about it, it's not a material factor.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Okay. Thank you. And then – so, Brian, do you want to just say a few comments around the Consumer sector?

Brian McNamara - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Analyst

Yeah, as Simon said earlier, we're seeing growth of 2% this year versus 3% to 4% in previous years. And our outlook is more like 2% to 3% for the categories. And really linking the two things, I mean, we're continuing to see volatility in emerging markets. So economic slowdown in countries like Brazil and Saudi Arabia and others, and also the impact that we've seen in India of demonetization and now GST we're working through. But we are also seeing pricing pressure in developed markets in the U.S. specifically linked to growing e-commerce. Now, for us, e-commerce is a key channel and a key focus area, and while in our categories it's still relatively small, we're growing ahead of the category, and in the U.S. specifically almost double the category growth in those channels. So that's a big focus for us. Listen, we have great brands with great equities, and we think e-commerce is another channel where our consumers are, and we can compete in that channel.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Brian. So – and, Patrick, you want to comment on BCMA?

Patrick Vallance - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Analyst

Yeah. So obviously BCMA is a great and rather specific target that we presented the results last year of the first wave of this study, showing I think very high response rates. And later this year we'll present expansion cohorts and the durability data associated with that. But clearly that level of efficacy is what people really care about in this disease, and in oncology of course that's what drives most behaviors is the level of efficacy. In terms of the side effect profile, the one that one thinks about with the drug antibody conjugates is corneal effects, and those corneal effects that we saw in the first phase of the study that we reported tend to be mild, Grade 1 or 2, and tend to be reversible. So, yes, there were some corneal effects that are there. We don't think they in any way reduce the importance of the efficacy signal, and we think they're manageable and reversible. So I think we're pretty confident on what we've seen so far, and we'll present the updated results before the end of the year.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Patrick. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Andrew Baum of Citi. Please go ahead.

Andrew S. Baum - Citigroup Global Markets Ltd.

Analyst

Thank you. A couple questions, please. At your midyear analyst meeting, many investors came away feeling that what you were offering was a challenged HIV and Respiratory business and just downgraded the expectations for Consumer. You clearly have an active Oncology business. The BCMA has been highlighted; you signed the Adaptimmune deal; you're extensively hiring. Could you help me understand why you just haven't committed it and it still remains a potential area rather than an important future growth driver for GSK? And then secondly, in relation to emerging markets, perhaps you could break down for us the underlying Pharma growth within China. I ask in referencing a older question, which is what would it take to reconsider the commitment of your established drugs to China rather than licensing to a third party and thus obviating some of the headwinds associated with the legacy of GSK in recent years in that market?

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

So thanks very much, Andrew. And you're right in terms of us laying out in Q2 that, as well as our two core areas of HIV and Respiratory, when we want to think about preparing for the next wave of growth for the company, particularly into the 2020s and beyond, Oncology and specifically three subsets of Oncology – immuno-oncology, epigenetics, and cell and gene therapy – you're right, were potentially key for us to be able to reaccelerate to growth for the company within the Pharma business unit. But it's still very early days. We said they were potential new therapy areas for us to recompete in, being Immuno-inflammation and Oncology. We're one quarter on. We highlighted in July five assets, I think it was, in Oncology that were part of our priority assets, and we've updated on two of them this quarter. But we are still in early phases, and it's premature to pronounce on how we may or may not choose to compete, alone or in partnership, in terms of the commercial part of it. But obviously you'll understand that's something that Luc and Patrick and the Oncology – and growing, as you said – Oncology teams are working on quite hard now, and we'll keep everybody informed on as data defines it. In terms of China, I'll ask Simon just to comment on the numbers for China. But our position is unchanged, which is China remains an extremely important and strategic market for the industry and the company. As events of this week, it's obvious that reform is likely to continue to accelerate in the sector in China, and that's something that we are participating in and we take a long-term view of continuing to be able to build our business profitably there. But, Simon, do you want to comment at all in terms of the actual numbers of (40:57)?

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Yeah. We're down mid-teens in the quarter for the Pharma business. The Vaccines business showing actually very good progress in the quarter after the launch of Cervarix, which has started well. And I think as we talked about before, Andrew, I mean, we're not closed mind to a structural answer to a different way forward in China. I think that it's a market we want to stay in. It's a market that we see opportunity, and – particularly with some of the rule changes about how you get products approved there, and what we might be able to do to bring our pipeline a bit further forward in that market. But we've got to find the right sort of base for it. So I think it's a bit early to give you anything more specific than that, but – other than to say we're looking at all the options that we might have available to try and take advantage of the opportunities there.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Tim Anderson of Bernstein. Please go ahead. Tim Anderson - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Thank you. A couple high-level questions, please. Emma, since the late July analyst meeting, Glaxo's stock price has basically been in a free-fall, and it's down today again. What do you think are the things the market is misunderstanding the most about the future of Glaxo under your leadership, and in your opinion what are going to be the triggers for a rerating, and when do you think those triggers are going to play out? Kind of sounds like you're not indicating a very hopeful 2018. And related to the same question, one of the concerns that came out of that meeting, and I think it still exists today in the mind of certain shareholders, is the security of your dividend. You gave guidance through 2018 on the dividend. But can you give investors assurances that in all likelihood there really is no dividend risk here, either in 2018 or beyond? And if you can't do that, in terms of talking about beyond 2018, can you articulate what could be the potential factors most likely to create future dividend uncertainty, for example, looking at Pfizer's Consumer business, if you were to acquire that, can you say that that creates some possibility of dividend risk?

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Tim, for your questions. I will just slightly contest the free-fall point. But that aside, I'll answer your point on what do I think may be undervalued or under-recognized. I think consistently I view that our Vaccines business is not fully recognized. We have a very competitive position here, a strong pipeline. We feel very positive about the long-term growth contribution of Shingrix, which is such a differentiated vaccine. And we'll see what more comes through on that today. We also think we have a world-leading, very competitive Consumer business and great track record there too of progress. And I think, as I highlighted in Q2, the reality of rebuilding confidence is being able to show visibility on the pipeline that's going to – which isn't currently valued because it's early days, and we need to let that data play through so that we can be convincing on the next wave of growth for the company. And that's something that needs a bit of time to play through with data. We've also got to make sure we build confidence around our capacity to execute new launches with excellence, which is why we're all very focused on the three primary launches that we've talked about. In terms of the dividend, our position is absolutely unchanged from where it was a quarter ago. We know the dividend matters to our investors. We intend, and we do pay it now, as a function of our free cash flow after investing in the necessary priorities to secure long-term growth for the company, and that capital allocation was very clearly laid out in Q2, starting with the Pharma pipeline, potentially bulking up Consumer, and then security of vaccines supply. And we confirmed our intention to pay the dividend in 2017, £0.80, and again in 2018, and then we will be returning to declaring a dividend quarterly and not giving a more specific outlook beyond that. And in all cases, as you know, the dividend is a decision at the time for the board. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Kerry Holford of Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Kerry Holford - Exane Ltd.

Analyst

Thank you. Three questions, please. Firstly, on the meningitis vaccines, I wonder if you could detail what the underlying growth of Menveo and Bexsero was in Q3, so excluding that positive impact of CDC movement? Secondly, on Trelegy, could you just detail a little more about how you plan to position that triple in COPD versus Breo and Anoro? And also on pricing, I see that the Trelegy list price is around 50% above that of Breo and Anoro, which I find relatively surprising, given it's such a highly competitive market. So is it fair to suggest the high rebate pressure we're now seeing on the existing elective (46:36) brand reflects the need to support that premium-price triple? Or on a net basis, should we assume it'll be priced at broad parity? And lastly, just on Vaccines, coming back to Graham's earlier question, just to clarify. Simon, you mentioned we should potentially anticipate margin decline with Advair generics. Were you referring to the Pharma division only, or group margins? I wonder if – should we expect that the Consumer vaccine margin expansion could offset any decline in Pharma over that period?

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks very much, Kerry. I think I'm going to – since most of those questions were linked to comparators financially, I'm going to pass them to Simon.

Simon Dingemans - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Okay. Thanks, Kerry. So on meningitis, it's really a Menveo story, and we saw some withdrawals this time last year, in Q3 last year, from the CDC stockpile, and so it's really a growth rate point going into this year. I think the underlying market share data is very, very consistent. So it's really a Menveo point. If you strip out the year-on-year benefit from that comparison point, Menveo would be flat in the quarter. So that's the kind of swing overall, so there's about a £30 million swing quarter to quarter, in terms of the quantum of that. I think on your Respiratory pricing point, we're not going to get into what our pricing strategy is around Trelegy. But we've always made it very clear that we want to be competitive. We have to be comparable with some of the older products in the portfolio so we don't create discontinuity. But we obviously also want to get value for the innovation that we had. So we're not going to get into the detail of how we might contract with people on that, but I think you can see from the list price, the signal that we're sending that we want to get access and be into the market as strongly and as quickly as we can. And then my point on margin was a Pharma one, but potentially also a group one, depending on how quickly and how hard Advair lands on us. If it comes in a typical analog of a genericization of a product, or we get two or three players in the market all at the same time, I don't think it's realistic to lose that amount of super high-profit sales because of the age of the product and not expect some impact on the group margin. I'll hand that back to Emma.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks. I mean, the only other thing I'd say on the triple is obviously short term in terms of the label. It's directly for patients that are either using Breo and Incruse or just Breo and could step up. But the results in our IMPACT study really do look very significant, we believe, very important for the long-term potential of this when you're seeing an exacerbation reduction of 15% versus Breo, 25% versus Anoro. And then when you also combine that with the FULFIL study versus Symbicort, we do have in hand the only closed triple with, we think, a significant long-term opportunity here. So as well as the financial combination, we are looking at what we think will, long term, be a meaningful contributor to this market and to our growth. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Jo Walton of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Jo Walton - Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd.: Thank you. And my question actually follows on from Emma's last comment, or at least one of them does. So in the Respiratory side, your initial label for Trelegy is relating only to patients who were already taking your own product. So I'm wondering whether we should think very much for next year of Trelegy effectively cannibalizing your existing sales? And when should we start to think that you can take material gains from outside of your portfolio to be long and sustainable? And I wonder if you could also help us on any elements of formulary coverage that you may have, anything that you can share with us, because clearly Trelegy came very late to the season for contracting for next year.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks, Jo. Sorry, go ahead. Jo Walton - Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd.: And on your HIV portfolio, it was said that about 40%, 45% of the dolutegravir prescriptions were coming with Tivicay and then being used with Descovy. I wonder if you could help us on what the dynamics would be for a patient. Presumably they're taking two co-pays if they take Tivicay and Descovy. And if they were to move to a combination bictegravir next year, that would be cheaper from a patient point of view. I wonder if you could just tell us how important patient co-pays are in the HIV market. And a final quick question on the Consumer business. You've highlighted that e-commerce is a trend which has depressed the market, but presumably where people are buying brands they are ultimately sourcing your product, but via a different route, which may be less profitable for you. But is there also a move towards private label, or are people just actually getting by and not buying these products because they're not going to the pharmacy and, therefore, they're not making impulse purchases? Just a little bit more on that Consumer dynamic, please.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Great, Jo. So I'll pass the Consumer one to Brian in a moment, and David will pick up on HIV. Just on your question on Trelegy, you're right, it will be a slow build. But again, we're working very hard to get the IMPACT study published, and just to point out that we think, maximum, Breo represents about maximum 15% of the open triple market today. So we do see plenty of opportunity for this medicine. In terms of the formularies, they're going to be published obviously Q4. I think the team's done a great job and are looking to see at least if not slightly improved access for our medicines. So, David, do you want to comment on HIV?

David Redfern - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, Jo. So what I said was, of the Tivicay business, we think about 40%, 45% of that is prescribed with Descovy. Exactly what the co-pay situation is depends a little bit which channel you're in, so there's difference between Medicare and the private insurance market. But you're right, in the private insurance market they will be paying two co-pays. I think – I mean it's clearly not irrelevant, but it's not the main influencer either, and we will work very hard to keep the co-pay to a very manageable level. I think in a specialty area like HIV, it's obviously the data – or it is the data – that really drives the prescribing decision, and I think that will probably override everything else. The other thing I'd say – of course, one option potentially, subject to the FDA approval in the next few weeks, is if they want to move to one tablet, is to move to, if you're virally controlled, the potential to move to our first dual with dolutegravir and rilpivirine. And I would flag there we've had some important news in the last 10 days with the U.S. guidelines, the DHS guidelines in the U.S., which specifically refers with a strong recommendation for those patients that might want to switch that they could switch to dolutegravir plus rilpivirine based on the SWORD data that we published earlier in the year.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Great. Thank you. And, Brian, do you want to pick up on e-commerce?

Brian McNamara - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Analyst

Yeah. So on e-commerce, I mean, you're right, it's another channel where consumers can go to buy our products. I think the dynamic that we're seeing that's causing some suppression in the market growth is around pricing and pressure on pricing, especially as bricks-and-mortar retailers look to compete with e-commerce and get more foot traffic into the store. And that's kind of depressing the value growth on the market.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Yeah, that's true, but I mean, you also made the point about private label. We have forever been competing in the U.S. and the U.K., particularly with the private label business, really in OTC. You don't see much private label anywhere in the world in our oral care business. And you've seen another quarter of very strong results in oral care. We're ahead of the market. And in all cases, whichever channel you're in, and when you're competing against private label, what matters, as Brian said earlier, is extremely strong brands. And that's where our power brand model continues to work. We got high single digit growth this quarter on our power brands despite the market environment and also having the right kind of differentiated innovation, and those are priorities for this business. So we think we can continue to compete, but it does mean that the amount of (55:40) differentiation matters ever more. Time for one last question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your question is from the line of Jeff Holford of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Holford - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Oh, hi. Thanks very much for taking the question. Emma, I'd just like to come back to the dividend really, just a bit more really again on the back of Tim's question. Because I think it's a no-brainer that you would look at the Pfizer Consumer unit. But market confidence in Glaxo's dividend is being slowly eroded by some of the current commentary from Q2 and then the fact you would be, in inverted commas, "looking" at the Pfizer business unit. Can you just give us a more specific answer to the question? Would you seriously consider making a purchase such as Pfizer Consumer if the dividend or portion of the dividend had to be sacrificed to fund that? I'm just trying to work out, is there a red line on the dividend? Can it be sacrificed to do M&A, or is it something that's sacrosanct, and if you can't afford to do the M&A without cutting that, then you have to let those opportunities go? Thanks very much.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Thanks very much for the question, Jeff. I'm afraid I'm just going to say that it's really too premature and hypothetical to respond to that at the moment.

Emma Walmsley - GlaxoSmithKline Plc

Management

Okay, with that, thank you very much, and wish you all a good rest of the day.