GSK plc (NYSE:GSK) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call November 1, 2023 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Nick Stone - Head of Investor Relations

Emma Walmsley - Chief Executive Officer

Tony Wood - Chief Scientific Officer

Luke Miels - Chief Commercial Officer

Deborah Waterhouse - Chief Executive Officer, ViiV Healthcare

Julie Brown - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Graham Parry - Bank of America

Kerry Holford - Berenberg

Simon Baker - Redburn

Andrew Baum - Citi

Richard Parkes - BNP Paribas

James Gordon - JPMorgan

Mark Purcell - Morgan Stanley

Steve Scala - TD Cowen

Peter Welford - Jefferies

Emily Field - Barclay

Nick Stone

Hello, everyone. It's Nick Stone, Head of Investor Relations. Welcome to our Year-to-Date and Q3 2023 Results Conference Call and Webcast for Investors and Analysts.

The presentation was sent out to our distribution list by email. And you can also find us on gsk.com.

Please turn to Slide 2. This is the usual safe harbor statements. We will comment on our performance using constant exchange rates, or CER, unless stated otherwise. As a reminder, following the Consumer Healthcare demerger in 2022 to form Haleon, we're representing performance and growth of the continuing operations for GSK.

Please turn to Slide 3. Today's call will last approximately one hour with the management presentation taking around 30 minutes and the remaining time for your questions. [Operator Instructions]

Our speakers are Emma Walmsley, Tony Wood, Luke Miels, Deborah Waterhouse and Julie Brown, with David Redfern joining the rest of the team for the Q&A portion of the call.

I'll now hand the call over to Emma.

Emma Walmsley

Thanks, Nick, and welcome to everybody joining us today.

I am delighted to be presenting to you all with another set of excellent quarterly results. Please turn to the next slide.

Sales and profits grew double-digits for the quarter, with sales up 16% to £8.1 billion, adjusted operating profit up 22% to £2.8 billion, and adjusted earnings per share up 25% to £0.504, all excluding pandemic solutions.

Our strong performance was broadly based and benefitted particularly from the outstanding US launch of our RSV vaccine, Arexvy, on track to be a blockbuster in its first year on the market. This excellent execution together with our drive for efficiency and margin accretion, means we can upgrade our 2023 sales, adjusted operating profit and adjusted EPS guidance.

For the year, we now expect sales to increase between 12% and 13%, adjusted operating profit to increase between 13% and 15%, and adjusted EPS to increase between 17% and 20%. Within sales, we are upgrading the outlooks across all segments for the year, reflecting our clear momentum.