LONDON (AFP) — Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said on Wednesday that net profit sank 13.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009, blaming fierce competition from generic drugmakers.
GSK said net profit tumbled to 1.13 billion pounds in the three months to March, compared with the same period of 2008.
"First-quarter profit performance (was) adversely impacted by gross margin decline due to US generic competition, one-off research and development write-offs" and other back-office costs, GSK said in a statement.
Large pharmaceutical companies are increasingly under pressure from rivals who make generic treatments, those drugs which no longer have patent protection.
Revenues, however, increased by 19 percent to 6.769 billion pounds in the reporting period.
"This quarter has shown divergent performances in our pharmaceutical business with US sales declining 22 percent to 2.3 billion pounds but strong sales performances reported in other regions," GSK chief executive Andrew Witty said in the statement.
"Europe, Emerging Markets, Asia Pacific/Japan and our Consumer Healthcare business all delivered good growth this quarter and contributed 4.3 billion pounds in sales, representing approximately 66 percent of overall turnover."
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