GSK tips its hat on new deals, re­views in­cen­tives as Hal Bar­ron cooks up a turn­around plan for its lack­lus­ter R&D group

Lat­er in Q2, new GSK re­search chief Hal Bar­ron is ex­pect­ed to present a de­tailed out­line of his turn­around plan for phar­ma R&D, which has been lan­guish­ing for years now. And the an­tic­i­pa­tion is killing an­a­lysts, it seems.

Bar­ron and CEO Em­ma Walm­s­ley are keep­ing their cards close to the vest for now, but in their Q1 call this week the two were pressed on two key is­sues: What does the re­cent re­cruit­ment of Genen­tech BD spe­cial­ist Kevin Sin — who will join Bar­ron’s team in San Fran­cis­co — mean for the first big round of deals, par­tic­u­lar­ly in on­col­o­gy? And how do they plan to re­fo­cus a group that con­sumes about $6 bil­lion every year on R&D costs, with­out much to show for it?

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