By Helena Smolak

GSK plans to buy back $2.50 billion in shares and raised its midterm sales target, citing promising pipeline developments.

The British pharmaceutical giant said Wednesday that the 2.0 billion-pound share buyback will be implemented over the next 18 months.

The company said it now expects sales of more than 40 billion pounds by 2031, compared with previous guidance of more than 38 billion pounds, on the back of expected new medicines between 2025 and 2031, including oncology treatments.

GSK expects sales to grow 3% to 5% this year and core operating profit and core earnings per share to grow between 6% and 8% at constant exchange rates. This compares with 2024 sales growth of 7%, core operating profit growth of 11% and core earnings per share growth of 10%.

Its cancer treatments lifted sales and profit ahead of analysts' expectations, offsetting lower vaccines sales on weak demand in the U.S.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, sales rose 4% at constant currencies to 8.12 billion pounds, above the 7.83 billion pounds that analysts had expected, according to a consensus poll by Visible Alpha.

Core operating profit, closely watched by analysts and investors, fell 10% at constant currencies to 1.43 billion pounds on lower-than-anticipated vaccine sales, but beat analysts' expectations of 1.385 billion pounds.

Core earnings per share fell 10% at constant currencies to 23.2 pence, above analysts' expectations of 20.6 pence.

The company expects to pay a full-year dividend of 61 pence, up from 60 pence in 2023.

Write to Helena Smolak at helena.smolak@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2025 03:09 ET (08:09 GMT)

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