The story of GSK is one of reinvention, CEO Emma Walmsley said at the STAT Summit in Boston on Thursday. Having shed its consumer division, the British drug giant is writing a new chapter as a pure-play biopharma company dedicated to the prevention, as well as treatment, of disease.
GSK’s recent launch of a new RSV vaccine for adults is emblematic of this move, adding to a portfolio that includes other vaccines, such as the very successful Shingrix for shingles, as well as drugs for HIV, other infectious diseases, and cancer, among others. But what does the growing sentiment against vaccination, not just in the United States but around the world, mean for such a bet on this market?
“It’s a very, very serious issue,” Walmsley said, noting that in 11 U.S. states, basic vaccination rates are now lower than they were before Covid. “The answer can’t be sort of flinging science over the airwaves and saying ‘trust us,’ because people don’t. There is a really serious challenge of misinformation and the ongoing issue of politicization, which I suspect is going to get more challenging in the next year for obvious reasons.”