Purpose, strategy and culture

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Our strategy

We are a focused biopharma company. We prevent and treat disease with vaccines, specialty and general medicines. We focus on the science of the immune system and advanced technologies, investing in four core therapeutic areas: infectious diseases, HIV, respiratory/immunology, and oncology. Our Ahead Together strategy means intervening early to prevent and change the course of disease, helping to protect people and support healthcare systems.

Explore more on our global website below.

Our R&D approach

Partner with GSK

Our portfolio

Specialty medicines

Specialty medicines are prescribed by specialist healthcare practitioners. For GSK this includes our cancer medicines that have life-changing potential for patients. We’re also developing medicines for immune-mediated conditions, including the first new medicine for the chronic autoimmune condition lupus in over 50 years.

We are global leaders in developing medicines for HIV. Having pioneered the first HIV treatments in the 1980s, our goal now is to limit the impact of HIV on people’s lives by treating, preventing and ultimately curing it.

Vaccines

Vaccines help protect people from infectious diseases at every stage of life. Our vaccines portfolio is the broadest in the industry, helping protect people from meningitis, shingles, flu, polio, measles and many more. Today, two million doses of our vaccines are administered daily, and 4 in 10 of the world’s children receive a GSK jab each year. We use diverse platform technologies from adjuvants that improve vaccine effectiveness through to mRNA technology. These are at the heart of our pipeline differentiation.

General medicines

General medicines are usually prescribed in primary care or community settings by general healthcare practitioners. For us, this includes our inhaled medicines for asthma and COPD, antibiotics and medicines for skin diseases. Every day, these medicines improve health and make life better for millions of people all over the world. For more than 50 years, we’ve helped millions of people with respiratory conditions to breathe more easily, including the first inhalers in 1969, and we remain the industry leader in respiratory science.

How we prevent and treat disease

Therapeutic areas

The four areas of human health we focus on to get ahead of disease are: infectious diseases, HIV, oncology and immunology.
We remain open to opportunities outside these core areas where the science aligns with our strategic approach.

Respiratory, immunology and inflammation

We have a deep understanding of the underlying drivers of disease in different groups of patients with conditions like asthma and COPD. Our ambition is to redefine the future of respiratory medicine with a broad portfolio of next-generation treatments that work in distinct ways to help as many people as possible. We’re building on our decades of knowledge in inflammatory mechanisms to target fibrotic lung, liver and kidney disease.

Oncology

Our ambition is to help increase overall quality of life, maximize survival and change the course of disease, expanding from our current focus on blood and gynaecological cancers into lung and gastrointestinal cancers, as well as other solid tumours. Our research uses precision medicine-based technology to match the right treatment to the right patient.

HIV

Our long-acting HIV medicines have the potential to dramatically change people’s experience by giving them an alternate to daily medicine.

Infectious diseases

Almost half the vaccines and medicines in our pipeline address infectious diseases, helping protect people from diseases like meningitis, shingles, flu, polio, measles and many more.

Therapy areas

Our long-term priorities

By combining our understanding of the science of the immune system with cutting-edge technology, we can discover and develop new medicines and vaccines with the potential to transform people’s lives. Rapid advances in science and technology are unlocking new opportunities to prevent and treat disease. Our broad portfolio and pipeline continues to strengthen, with key milestones across our core therapeutic areas in 2024. To complement our in-house R&D, we partner with the world’s best minds to enable access to novel science and technology.

How we innovate

New approvals since 2017
20+
Potential new vaccines and medicines in Phase III and registration in 2017
23
Vaccines and medicines in our pipeline
69

With our strong momentum and improving outlook for sustained growth through the decade, we're confident in our ability to deliver human health impact at scale, worldwide.

Our performance

Vaccines delivered in 2021
>767mn
Medicine doses delivered in 2021
1.7bn

Being a responsible business is an integral part of our strategy. We apply our strengths and take action in the areas that can most positively impact patients, society and our people over the long-term. Six focus areas address what is most material to our business and most important to our stakeholders: access to healthcare, global health and health security, environment, inclusion, ethical standards, product governance.

Our responsibility

Our culture

At GSK, culture is something we all own. It’s powered by the little things GSK people do every day to help us get ahead of disease together. It drives delivery of our strategy and makes GSK a place where people can thrive. Being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and making sure we always do the right thing is how we deliver for patients, shareholders, and of course the people who work here.

Our Code sets out the commitments GSK and our people make to get ahead together – so we can deliver on our ambition in the right way, bring our culture to life and make GSK an exciting and inspiring place to work.