Today’s announcement was hailed as another milestone in the four-year odyssey to carve the drugmaker’s empire into two separately listed companies.
Brian McNamara, Haleon’s CEO Designate, said: “Introducing Haleon to the world marks another step in our journey to become a new, standalone company.
"We are on track to launch Haleon in mid-2022 and our business momentum is strong. We look forward to updating investors and analysts more on this at our capital markets event at the end of February.”
The board will be led by chairman designate Sir Dave Lewis, the former boss of Tesco.
Glaxo turned down three approaches for the business from Unilever, which offered £50 billion in a final ill-fated tilt that provoked criticism from analysts and investors.
GSK chief Emma Walmsley
GSK
GSK’s chief Emma Walmsley said: “Haleon brings to life years of hard work by many outstanding people to build this new company purely dedicated to everyday health.
"Haleon has enormous potential to improve health and wellbeing across the world with strong prospects for growth, and through listing will unlock significant value for GSK shareholders.”
Walmsley intends to stay on as chief of the new vaccines and drugs discovery division, to be known as New GSK, despite public calls from activist investors Elliott and Bluebell to recruit a boss with a deeper scientific background.
Its 3500 employees will stay on at GSK House - overlooking the M4 - for at least two years and a search is under way for smaller offices nearby.
New GSK has set targets of 5% sales growth and 10% increase in profit by 2026, aiming for £33 billion in revenues by the end of the decade to offset the imminent loss of exclusivity over a cluster of blockbuster drugs including the £4.7 billion-a-year HIV inhibitor dolutegravir.
