Earnings Labs

GSK plc (GSK)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 5, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the analyst call on the GSK fourth quarter 2019 results. I will now hand you over to Sarah Elton-Farr, Head of Investor Relations, who will introduce today's session.

Sarah Elton-Farr

Management

Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our full year 2019 results, which were issued earlier today. You should have received our press release and can view the presentation on GSK's website. For those not able to view the webcast, slides that accompany today's call are located on the Investors section of the GSK website. Before we begin, please refer to slide two of our presentation for our cautionary statement. Our speakers today are Chief Executive Officer, Emma Walmsley, Iain Mackay, Chief Financial Officer and Dr. Hal Barron, Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D. And we have a broader team for Q&A. We request that you ask only a maximum of two questions so that everyone has a chance to participate. Our presentation will last for approximately 45 minutes, lightly longer than usual to give Hal time to update you on our R&D progress. And with that, I will hand the floor over to Emma.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thank you, SEF. When I became CEO of GSK in 2017, I laid out my three long term priorities for the company, innovation, performance and trust, all to be powered by a necessary change in culture. In 2019, we made significant progress across all three of these priorities as we begin to work towards setting ourselves up as two new companies and I will talk more about that in a moment. Our strategy is continuing to deliver results. You will hear from Hal on innovation and under his leadership, we have strengthened our pipeline, focusing and increasing our investments in R&D with exciting new developments in oncology and a significant number of positive results across the portfolio. And with strengthened commercial and supply chain delivery, we are showing progress in launch execution in pharma and vaccines. In performance, we have delivered growth across the company with improvements in operational execution as we reshaped the group's portfolio. In pharma, we continue to invest in our specialty capabilities with talented leaders ready to support the launches we anticipate this year. In consumer healthcare, we completed the transaction we announced at the end of 2018, our joint venture with Pfizer to create a new leading consumer healthcare company. And on trust, we are also making good progress. We have continued to pioneer innovations in global health in TB, malaria and HIV. And we were delighted to see our performance on our trust commitments reflected in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index where GSK was listed for the first time as a top-ranked company in the sector. I said the cultural change of GSK is very important. We are also making good progress on this to develop a more performance focused culture with a strong emphasis on ethics and values and we are seeing this…

Iain Mackay

Management

Thanks Emma. All the comments I make today will be on a constant currency basis except for I specify otherwise and I will cover both total and adjusted results. On slide 12, a summary of the group's results for 2019, which overall were at the upper end of our guidance and demonstrated continued execution on our strategic objectives. Reported turnover growth was 8%, reflecting closure of the consumer joint venture with Pfizer with group revenue growth of 4% on a pro forma basis. Total operating profit was up 23% with total earnings per share up 20%, also primarily reflecting reduced management charges and contingent consideration liabilities and put options compared with the previous year. On an adjusted basis, operating profit was flat and on a reported basis and declined 3% pro forma while adjusted earnings per share was up 1%. I will go through the drivers behind these in more detail in a moment. We made good progress in the year with free cash flow generating £5.1 billion, reflecting a number of factors, most importantly improved working capital management. And on currency, a weaker Sterling particularly against the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen resulted in a tailwind of 2% on sales and 3% to adjusted earnings per share. Slide 13 summarizes the reconciliation of our total to adjusted results. Main adjusting items in the year were intangible amortization with higher charges as a result of TESARO acquisition, major restructuring focused on improving the efficiency of the supply chain, but also some initial charges for the integration of the consumer healthcare JV with Pfizer. Within transaction related, the main contributor was the unwind of the fair value uplift on inventory taken on as part of the consumer healthcare JV. And finally, the disposals column includes the proceeds from the divestment of…

Hal Barron

Management

Thank you Iain. It has been approximately two years since I took over as head of R&D and I am very pleased with the progress we have made so far. Today, I will be focusing on progress we have made over the last 12 months and two key medicines that we feel have great potential to transform how we treat patients, Zejula for ovarian cancer and belantamab mafodotin for multiple myeloma. In addition, I will briefly discuss other assets that have made important progress in our pipeline and share key milestones for the year ahead. Before I get into my presentation, I want to take a moment to say that I am very excited about the R&D changes Emma mentioned earlier. I believe that taking a common approach to how we conduct R&D at GSK will help us be more effective in how we discover and develop transformational therapies for patients. With that, let begin my presentation. I would like to start with a brief reminder of our approach to R&D at GSK, which is to leverage science, technology and culture. Specifically, we are strengthening our R&D pipeline through focus on the science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and other advance technologies such as functional genomics and machine learning while creating a culture that fosters an innovative mindset. We made significant progress on this strategy in 2019 and substantially strengthened our pipeline. In the last 12 months, we achieved three major approvals, made eight submissions, had six positive readouts from pivotal studies and progressed four new assets into pivotal study. Towards the end of my presentation, I will share brief update on our use of human genetics, functional genomics and machine learning to discover new targets. I am also pleased with the progress we are…

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Hal. So to summarize, in 2019 we delivered a good performance with growth in sales and earnings and strong cash generation. We also made significant progress on all our IPT priorities, strengthening the pipeline, improving operational execution and reshaping the company. In 2020, our first priority remains innovation and to progress our pipeline and support our new product launches. Recent data readouts underpin our decision to further increase investment in R&D and our long-term growth drivers. At the same time, we are again focused on operational performance and execution, including delivering a successful integration in consumer health and as we have outlined today with the unique catalyst of the separation we are starting a new program to prepare GSK to become two new companies. And in trust, we will continue to pursue actions to deliver the public commitments we set out. These support our business and ESG performance and mean that GSK continues to provide a broader contribution to society, in addition of course the financial returns. All of this aims to support future growth and significant value creation with the formation of two new leading companies in biopharma and consumer, each with the opportunity to improve the health of hundreds of millions of people. And finally and most importantly, I want to say a big thank you to all our employees and those who worked with us in 2019 for their enormous contribution. Without them, we would not succeed and we count on them now, as we prepare GSK for this exciting future. With that, operator, this team is ready to take your questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of James Gordon from JPMorgan. You are live in the call, James. Please go ahead.

James Gordon

Analyst

Hello. Thanks for taking the questions. This is James Gordon from JPMorgan. Two questions please. The first question is about consumer because the separation was the theme today. My questions are about the topline outlook. So pro forma, there wasn't actually any consumer topline growth this quarter and more generally, I think, the market for consumer health is meant to be something like 2% to 3% growth and the players have underperformed a bit. And more generally, in consumer, there has been some debate from some investors who ask whether consumer companies need to sacrifice some of the increase in the high profitability they have been achieving to invest more to actually to get faster growth. So is that a valid question for the consumer health business? Is it possible, with that high-20s margins and also an exciting topline growth rate? And then the second question was just on SG&A book for the group. So I know these various cost saving initiatives and the plan to shift some of SG&A to R&D, but SG&A was actually still up about 3% local currency pro forma. So is there anything exceptional in Q4? Do we extrapolate that forward to the next few years? That you are not just in investment mode for R&D but SG&A is going to grow quite large as well and that's why no operating margin expansion until 2022?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks James. I will ask Iain in a moment to comment on SG&A. I think he covered a few of those points previously, particularly on our investment in the future growth drivers but it is worth coming back on the details on non-customer facing. And on consumer, Brian is also on the call. So I will ask him to comment on the outlook just to reiterate that there were, in terms of Q4 topline, there were a couple of points. One point from divestments and one from alignment of stock levels across the Pfizer portfolio. And fundamentally, we are still very confident both on extracting the synergies but also on the value that is going to be created by the combination of these two businesses and our investment in growth there. But Brian, would you like to give a bit more commentary on consumer and we will come back to Iain on SG&A.

Brian McNamara

Analyst

Yes. Thanks Emma and thanks James. When you look at full year growth for the business, we grew 2%. We did have a 1% drag from divestments and phasing out a low-margin contract manufacturer as we previously communicated. In Q4, we were flat. And as Emma said, we had a point of drag from that and also some alignment of inventory levels. If you across the portfolio, we still grew healthy on our power brands. We have a very clear strategic resource allocation. We saw mid single digit growth and double digit growth on brands like Sensodyne, Panadol and our gum health brand Parodontax. Now, the integration continues to go well. We are on track and we are confident in delivering the £500 million synergies. And if you remember, when we communicated, that, we communicated we would invest 25% back of those synergies into innovation and growth. So as I look at the make up of the business, I still am incredibly excited and optimistic about the combination of the two portfolios, our ability to grow, obviously ex-divestments as Iain laid out and we look at the mid to high 20 margins commitment by 2022, given where we are on integration and our confidence in the synergies, I believe we can also deliver that.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Brian. Next question please.

Iain Mackay

Management

No, I didn't answer the SG&A question.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Sorry. No, I wasn't. Iain? Let's go back to SG&A.

Iain Mackay

Management

Yes, absolutely. James, thanks for your question. I will give just a view on both the fourth quarter as well as the full year on SG&A. In terms of fourth quarter, it was very much a consistent story around investing around customer facing activities whether it's continuing to build out our own specialty care capabilities but also ensuring the right support behind new product launches and commercial activities. And that was true across both pharma and the consumer healthcare businesses in the fourth quarter. That's a consistent theme across the whole year. If you look at SG&A for the whole year that was also influenced by a number of legal settlements that we had and that was reflected most importantly in the third quarter. But when you look at customer facing versus non-customer facing SG&A, both in the fourth quarter and across the year, we have kept non-customer facing SG&A very flat over the course of the year and the quarter and put, if you like, our eggs behind and making sure we have done the right decisions in investment around supporting new product launches and capability in the market.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Iain. Now, we can go to the next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Matthew Weston from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, Matthew. You are live in the call.

Matthew Weston

Analyst

Hi. Thank you very much. Two questions, if I can, please. For 2019, I think exactly 50% of pharma business revenue is now established products. It declined 8%. Could you give us some indication of what we should expect going forward in 2020 and the midterm for that large product segment? And then secondly, Hal, there has been a great deal of investor focus on bintrafusp alfa. I noticed on slide 47, your catalyst that will inform progress, there is no mention of anything in 2021 in terms of readout. There has been some suggestion of the trial being upsized in front line lung versus Keytruda. Could you just let us know what could drive any decision to upsize the study and whether it really is planned? Thank you.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks. So we will come back to Hal on that in a second and then just ask Iain to comment on established products. So just as a reminder, this is a business or parts of business when we are considering the divestments review and wanting to focus on our core priorities that will be impacted. And obviously we will update you on that as we go through this execution. Iain?

Iain Mackay

Management

Yes. Matthew, in terms of, you are absolutely right, in 2019, we saw about 6% reduction in the established pharma portfolio over the prior year. And going forward, we would expect a mid to high single digit decline for that portfolio. That, I think, is very consistent with how we have guided and the actual fact how this portfolio has performed. And just as an aide memoire, we obviously moved adverse Seretide into the established pharma portfolio at the beginning of the year as genericization, loss of exclusivity took place. But broadly speaking, mid to high single digit decline in the established pharma portfolio.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thank you. Hal, on bintrafusp please?

Hal Barron

Management

Yes. You know, thank you, Matthew, for the question. We are pleased with the ongoing collaboration with our partners at Merck KGaA on the development of bintrafusp and have been deferring to them on much of the disclosure time lines related to the program. That said, the study is on track for the estimated primary completion at the end of 2021. We will hopefully be able to have the data read out after that. but remember, that's an event driven trial. And there could be an interim analysis in 2020, which could lead to expansion of the study depending on what's evaluated. No interim data, as we have mentioned before, will be shared externally to protect the integrity of the study. The data will only be provided once the study is completed and the endpoints are analyzed.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Hal. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Andrew Baum from Citi. You are live in the call, Andrew. Please go ahead.

Andrew Baum

Analyst

Thank you. Just one question.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Andrew, we can't hear you.

Andrew Baum

Analyst

Can you hear me?

Emma Walmsley

Management

No.

Iain Mackay

Management

A little louder.

Andrew Baum

Analyst

Hello. Can you hear me?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Marginally, try.

Andrew Baum

Analyst

Yes. So what's the appetite of financial capacity and bandwidth for further BD on the pipeline, given the existing outward pressure required for expansion of the existing program that Iain alluded to in his presentation? Continued growth at the same levels as last year and I assume the same is true for 2021. Does that allow for additional pipeline products to some in? Or is there still the capacity to do such?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Andrew. So heard loud and clear. And the answer on this is, there is absolutely no change to what we have said previously in terms of the prioritization of our capital allocation. Our number one priority is to continue to strengthen the pipeline, be that organically or inorganically. Obviously, we are particularly pleased with the positive data that's read out more recently and also pleased with the quality of the execution of the business development that we have done to-date. So we will continue to keep an eye out for that with due alignment to the R&D strategy that Hal laid out and obviously the discipline in terms of some allocation of capital. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Mark Purcell from Morgan Stanley. You are live in the call, Mark. Please go ahead.

Mark Purcell

Analyst

Yes. And I thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two. First on Zejula. How breast and lung cancer starting a new set of trials within the year. Can I just ask, I mean we discussed PARP is potentially the new platinum in the summer of the first half results. Just why is it taking 18 months before you move into pivotal in these new indications given the set of exciting data you presented today? Is this a case of waiting for internal and additional competitive external data points? Or is this a case of just managing the overall R&D spend? And then secondly on the COPD vaccine, clearly, multi-blockbuster potential. But I hope could you provide us a little bit of an idea in terms the risk-reward here? When we sort of dig into this and clearly 35%, 45% of patients are persistently colonized by H influenzae and catarrhalis. But if you look at acute infective exacerbations, you will see the involvement of these two bacteria at around about 15%. So clearly a very exciting program but given the acute exacerbations, you don't see much in terms of overcolonization of these bacteria. Could you help us understand sort of what kind of signal we could see as we gauge the potentially enormous potential in the latter part of this decade?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks so much. So I am going to ask, actually Roger Connor spoke about the COPD vaccine. So I think he is on the line with us as well. And then we will ask Hal though, first of all, to comment on the PARP program.

Hal Barron

Management

Well, thanks for the question on the PARP and we view this as very exciting class and we think Zejula is very unique, both in its PK and its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. One of the our decision with regard to which indications and the design the trials, it was actually not driven really in any meaningful way by competitor data or budgetary constraints. One of the interesting observations that came out of the PRIMA study which we think we have an explanation for and I went over, is regarding the 50% of patients who had no evidence of a homologous recombination defect to the HRP patients who benefited substantially. Not only was there improvement in PFS but it's very early days and limited data, but there appeared to be suggestions of maybe even potential survival advantage in an early analysis. That led us to rethink exactly how to design the trials, which populations to pursue, whether it's treatment, whether it's maintenance and what indications leading us to conclude in lung and breast but the populations within them and how to apply diagnostic with something that we were taking time to digest after PRIMA. Having said that, we also are trying to take advantage of the potential unique feature of Zejula to cross the blood-brain barrier. So designing trials that might enable us to confirm the preclinical data that suggest it does cross and it is active was important. So we are excited about getting those programs off the ground and being able to demonstrate significant benefits for those types of patients.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks, Hal. Rogers, do you want to comment on the COPD vaccine?

Roger Connor

Analyst

Yes, certainly. Thanks for the question. I would just echo the excitement that we harbor around the development of the COPD vaccine that we have. We are the only company really working in this space. A couple of things just in terms of illustrating the opportunity. First of all, I would say, third largest cause of mortality globally in COPD. So we think the opportunity is definitely there. In the U.S. alone, we estimate there is around 16 million people suffering from COPD. Obviously, in GSK and the development, we are in vaccines working very closely with our respiratory colleagues in pharmaceuticals because obviously the huge experience that we have as well there are will be key. And the readout is a proof of concept. As you mentioned, it is going to be in the second half of this year. We are looking at a reduction in acute exacerbation linked to bacterial types. I think in terms of what we expect from the data, I think we will have to see. What I would point out is that this vaccine does include the same adjuvant technology, our AS01 technology that we have within Shingrix as well. We are expecting to see efficacy data linked to that reduction in moderate to severe exacerbation and we are studying in a population of 40 to 80 year old. So that said, but we are excited about the opportunity.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Roger. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Graham Parry of Bank of America. You are live in the call, Graham. Please go ahead.

Graham Parry

Analyst

Thanks for taking the questions. So, first on is just to clarify the scale and quantity of divestments. So I think you said the amount of revenues that you envisage divesting would be £1 billion in related, say, Horlicks and other consumer divestments. So can you just confirm the derms and other pharma divestments would be needed in order to cover the £2 billion cash restructuring costs and quantify what you expect lost revenues there to be? And perhaps any EPS dilution on top of your guidance in 2020 that you might envisage from that? And then secondly, when you talk about building R&D capabilities going forward, to envisage that's more weighted towards technologies or products and how do we intend to fund those acquisitions, if external M&A?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Graham. I am going to ask Iain to pick up first of all on the shape of the divestments. So just to be clear, the £1 billion was referring to the consumer part of it in terms of net sales including Horlicks. And remember, we previously announced a program of consumer divestments. So I will let Iain take up on that and then we will come back to Hal on what we mean in terms of building the R&D capabilities through the program, the new program we have announced today.

Iain Mackay

Management

Yes. Sure, Graham. So divestments, so two buckets here broadly speaking. As Emma described, we had announced earlier at the time that we announced the formation of the JV with Pfizer that we would generate about $1 billion of net proceeds from disposals of tail brands within the consumer healthcare company. We had obviously announced separately that we would dispose of our Horlicks and certain other brands to Hindustan Unilever which as I mentioned earlier are likely to close, we expect to close some time around the end of this quarter. Now taking those, the consumer deals together in 2019, that's generated about $1 billion worth of revenue for the topline of consumer healthcare and from the tail brands excluding Hindustan, we would expect to generate $1 billion in net proceeds. That's bucket one. Bucket two is divestments or assets that are under review across the board pharma portfolio. We mentioned or we announced today the fact that the prescription derms business is under consideration. That's a business, the portion of which we are considering as revenues between £200 million and £300 million. It's a good business. It's not priority business for us, but certainly it's a good prospect in terms of interest for other people. In terms of the proceeds we would expect to generate from that portfolio reprioritization, we would expect to cover the cash costs of the restructuring program, the readiness for separation of £1.6 billion. So just for clarity on that, the program we talked about is total cost of £2.4, £1.6 cash, £0.8 of impairments coming through that. And we would expect to generate proceeds that would cover that cash cost. Now within that, also we have mentioned derms as one of the business. One of the areas we were looking at are also a number of equity holdings that we have which clearly there aren't revenues or operating margins partly attached to and that again represents an interesting opportunity for us to reprioritize capital allocation towards the growth drivers within the organization. So helpfully, that helps clarify what we are doing. And obviously, as we proceed with these divestments, we will get information to the market about what we are doing and the impacts that has on the ongoing financial of the group.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Iain. Hal?

Hal Barron

Management

Yes. Thanks Graham. back So by R&D capabilities, I think I would think about that in three different buckets. First one you mentioned, which is technologies such as AI/ML, functional genomics, human genetics and our cell therapy programs. I think we have made terrific progress there and advancing them further we will probably be focused on identifying new synthetic lethal combination and some new targets that are already emerging from some of the preliminary functional screens and that combined with, we have already had eight targets from 23andMe, we are just going to have a lot of stuff coming out of the technology that we need to execute on. So that would be the second bucket as sort of executing on all the emerging data from the technologies. And lastly, capabilities to actually build up the ability to actually get the trials done and filed. The pipeline is very robust now, a lot of successes and we need the people and tools to actually turn all these medicines into approved drugs. So capabilities on all three of those are where we are focused.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Hal. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Emmanuel Papadakis from Barclays. Please go ahead. You are live in the call.

Emmanuel Papadakis

Analyst

Thanks very much. Emmanuel Papadakis from Barclays. Maybe just a couple on the pharma side in terms of potential moving parts in 2020. Congratulations on the PRIMA real-time oncology review. Could you just share your thoughts in terms of what that might potentially imply in terms of commercial inflection in the second of the year and indeed what is embedded in your current guidance for the pharma business in 2020? And the second one is just on the cabotegravir CRL. CMC, I don't think typically implies huge delays historically. But you have been rather elusive about clarifying when you expect to refile and the potential ranges around that. So any guidance you could provide would be helpful. Thank you.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks so much Emmanuel. So we will come to Luke first on the commercial outlook for Zejula and then we will come to David, although I am not sure we are going to have definitive answer for you on the progress around the filing for the cab.

Luke Miels

Analyst

Sure. Thanks Emmanuel. Thanks for the question. So as we have communicated in the past, PRIMA really is the critical readout in the near term for this product. We would expect it in the first half and then linked to that we would expect some changes in the NCCN guidelines, which of course, would then ideally place pressure on this persistent election by some physicians to watch and wait. We are well advanced and prepared for that. We reconfigured the sales force in October. It has historically been footprint and based on Varubi which is the product that TESARO had for chemo-induced nausea and vomiting. So we took the decision to bite the bullet at that point and reframe the sales force. That's important because around 50% of scripts come from Tier 3 physicians. It's quite disbursed for oncology, but we would expect to see that flowing through in the second half of next year, once we get the label and the guidelines. Of course, if it comes sooner, we would then update you.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Luke.

David Redfern

Analyst

Yes. Thanks Emmanuel. So on cab, the CRL as we said, was entirely related to the CMC, not efficacy or safety or the clinical data. We do think it is definitely resolvable. I am not going to commit right now on time frames. I think we need to meet with the FDA. There is a process for that. It's called the Type 2 meeting and you have to apply and so forth. But that meeting is likely to happen very soon, certainly during quarter one. And I think when we have that meeting, we would be in a much better position to be clearer on the way forward.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks David. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Geoffrey Porges from Leerink. You are live in the call, Geoffrey. Please go ahead.

Geoffrey Porges

Analyst

Thank you very much. Just a couple of growth drivers questions. First, on Shingrix. Could you talk a little bit more about the slight supply increase, particularly in the context of the two flat quarters, sequentially flat quarters? And then could also discuss what the pricing trend you would expect over the next couple of years, given the fact that you are moving out of the U.S. concentrated portfolio into markets such as China? Thanks.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks. Well, I will ask Luke to comment on the pricing dynamic. Although we are obviously thoughtful about that with any geographic expansion, not least because the demand is not showing signs of slowing down. Just in terms of capacity increases though, I would say I am not sure I would agree that we have had two flat quarter on Shingrix. But with the guidance that we gave today was that we would expect a roll forward of Q4 with a potential slight improvement through 2020. And I am incredibly pleased with the progress that Roger's team has made in terms of capacity expansion, particularly in terms of bulk yield. And obviously, we are constantly seeing what further opportunities could be possible. But we don't expect much further improvement beyond that until we get into the step change of a new site in 2024, but we will keep you updated as the year progresses. Luke, you want to comment on second question?

Luke Miels

Analyst

Sure. Yes. So I mean, we are very focused in terms of mix and markets to introduce. You know, we are in Canada and Germany and we have seen quite striking uptakes there, which are limited by volume like in the U.S. Our approach globally is going to be to introduce this into the private market, at least for a considerable time. We think there is significant opportunity there in the out-of-pocket segment and that's certainly consistent with what we have seen in Germany. And China is sort of the next one off the bank. What we are trying to do is align the price in these new markets with the U.S. price.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Luke. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Laura Sutcliffe from UBS. You are live in the call, Laura. Please go ahead.

Laura Sutcliffe

Analyst

Hello. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly on the prescription dermatology business. You mentioned just now that it's a £200 million to £300 million of business in terms of sales. Could you maybe tell us if you are looking at that as one block as part of the review? Or whether we might see products sold off piecemeal? And then secondly on 916, do you anticipate any patient monitoring requirements for the combination being studied in the DREAMM-9 trial? Thank you.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks. So David, anything to add. I mean I am not sure.

David Redfern

Analyst

Well, it's early in the review, Laura. So I am not going to get too much in it. I mean obviously we will do whatever we think is in the best interest of the company and the shareholders. As that review goes on, all options are on the table.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Hal, on 916?

Hal Barron

Management

Yes. Thanks, Laura for the question. First, you know, as I said in the presentation, we take patient safety very seriously and helping clinicians understand and manage this unique adverse event will be important. We are not the disclosing any discussions we are having with regulators but we think that it's going to be important that on the keratopathy that we think was well-managed by the DREAMM-2 investigators in collaboration with their optho colleagues is sort of replicated in the real-world. We are developing educational materials and programs to help to make sure that happens on launch so that these patients get treated optimally. As we get more clarity with regulatory authorities, we can update you further.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Thanks Hal. Next question, please?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Naresh Chouhan from Intron Health. Please go ahead. You are live in the call.

Naresh Chouhan

Analyst

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. One on dividend cover. I remember a while ago, you set some targets around dividend cover and that we see cash flow falling in 2019 is expected to be lower going into 2020. Can just give us an update on how you are thinking about those targets? And then on the consumer health margin targets, can you help us to understand whether or not you need to have those divestments or potentially or likely lower margin products to help you get to the higher end of that range? Or whether you can hit those targets organically? Thanks.

Emma Walmsley

Management

So I will ask Iain to comment on the consumer margin redivestments. And I am sorry I forgot, what was the first question?

Naresh Chouhan

Analyst

The dividend cover.

Emma Walmsley

Management

The dividend cover, yes, sorry. Well, the basic answer to that is we have absolutely no change to our policy around divi cover, which is a function of free cash flow from 1.25 to 1.5 and are actually pleased with the cash flow delivery this year. And we are clear on the policy and clear where it sits on our capital allocation priorities. Iain, anything on the --

Naresh Chouhan

Analyst

No change on that front.

Iain Mackay

Management

I am sorry, Naresh. I am not entirely sure I followed your question, consumer healthcare disposals. Could you just run that one past me again? Lost him?

Emma Walmsley

Management

Maybe we can come. Okay, maybe we will go to the next question and --

Iain Mackay

Management

Unless Naresh comes, okay.

Emma Walmsley

Management

Next question then, please.

Operator

Operator

That was your last question.

Emma Walmsley

Management

All right. Well, thank you everybody. We look forward to updating you again soon. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you Emma. Thank you everyone. That concludes your conference call for today. You may now disconnect. Thank you for joining and enjoy the rest of your day.