Strong earnings growth for Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham

Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, the UK drug giants hoping tomerge before the end of the year (Marketletters passim), have both posted strong rises in earnings for the first nine months of 2000.

GW's sales rose 12% to L6.86 billion ($9.96 billion) and earnings growth (excluding merger and manufacturing restructuring costs) was at a similar level. The company gives only brief details of its results at the nine-month stage, but noted that sales of the combination asthma treatment Seretide (fluticasone plus salmeterol) were particularly healthy. Sir Richard Sykes, GW's chairman, said that the results were strong, "particularly in the US market where all key therapy areas performed well."

For its part, SB posted 26% pretax profit growth for the first nine months of the year to $1.65 billion including the effect of currencies, on sales of its retained businesses totaling L6.26 billion, an increase of 13%. Third-quarter 2000 sales reached L2.12 billion (+21%) and pretax earnings were up 26% to L589 million, though SB noted that this latter figure did not include merger charges of L41 million.