GSK déjà vu: Time for a top-down switch as new CEO tries to con­quer old R&D demons

Close to a decade ago, GSK CEO An­drew Wit­ty and R&D chief Mon­cef Slaoui de­cid­ed they need­ed to do some­thing new and dif­fer­ent to fire up a lack­lus­ter R&D group, look­ing to shock a sys­tem where re­searchers were far too fo­cused on hang­ing on to un­promis­ing drugs.

Now, new CEO Em­ma Walm­s­ley says she has in­her­it­ed the ex­act same prob­lem they vowed to fix.

Walm­s­ley notes the com­pa­ny needs new block­buster drugs that can bring in more than a bil­lion dol­lars each if she ex­pects to liv­en things up on the bot­tom line. An­a­lysts (hel­lo, GSK) have been say­ing the same thing for years, shak­ing their heads over the drug ap­provals that did come through with­out much chance of chang­ing the game in the dis­eases they ad­dressed.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER