GSK plc American Depositary Shares (Each representing two Ordinary Shares) Bernstein’s 23rd Annual Pan-European Strategic Decisions Conference

Yeah, sure. Good morning, everybody. Nice to see you. Yeah. Luke has become the CEO from the beginning of the year, and he was an internal candidate, so he knows GSK well. He has worked with GSK for a long time. What he did from the very beginning was, his focus was really on three priorities. The first one was all about accelerating R&D. The second one was to fuel the launches. And the third one was simplification. What he has done in those early stages is he set up a group that was called the Strategic Portfolio Review Group, and they met every two weeks with the people who run the programs. So effectively de-layered by going directly to the people who were running the program, and looked at how we could accelerate the major assets or the prioritized assets within R&D.

At the same time, we also set up another group, which was looking at how we could simplify the way we run the business, how we could use technology and AI to simplify the business. The benefit then of the two coming together was we said we want to accelerate R&D, we want to fund the launches, but we do not want to change the operating profit profile of the company. So we needed to find the funding through the second group's work running in parallel with the first group around accelerating R&D and those assets. And the benefit has been, and we announced a major change program just recently at the end of July. So we were targeting almost GBP 2 billion of savings, GBP 1.9 billion of savings, the majority could then be reinvested in the pipeline. It means that we have got 20 phase III starts this year from 10.

We started off at 11, and we have now got 20 phase III starts, across seven assets and around 18 indications. So this is really showing that GSK is changing into a more asset-rich company. The other point was we decided to allow part of those savings to drop through to the margin, in the period when we lose HIV dolutegravir patent protection, which is 2028 to 2030. So we have now said during that period, the margin will be stable to improving. So net-net, there has been a big change program running in the first six months together with, of course, not to mention the biggest deal we have done for quite a long time, which was the Nuvalent deal, which was a $10 billion deal, just over a $10 billion deal. Yeah. So it has been a busy six months since he started.

Yes. So we decided to move. For those of you that do not know, we are currently in Stevenage, and we have been in Stevenage for quite a long period. We took the decision to move to Cambridge, essentially because you have a total biotech ecosystem in Cambridge. You have access to some of the most prominent hospitals in the U.K., like Addenbrooke's, and you have over 400 biotech organizations built out of there, together with, obviously, the university. So it creates this ecosystem that our scientists can then work in so that we will have new labs, new state-of-the-art facilities to really motivate those scientists to do their best work. They will be interacting all the time with either the hospital or university all on the doorstep, which we believe will make a difference and really energize the organization.

Similarly, we work very closely with academic centers in the U.S., and the benefit is you can shorten the period from research into translational medicine into the clinic, and that is the whole ethos of what has driven the change.

Yes, absolutely. Both in the U.K., in the U.S., but also very importantly, increasingly, we've built additional capability in terms of BD to access BD opportunities in China. I would say these are the key focal points, U.K., Cambridge, East Coast of the U.S., together with some biotechs in California. You've seen us do deals with those. And very importantly, also China. We've done very significant deals there with two major companies, Hengrui in respiratory and Hansoh in oncology. That deal scouting capability and those relationships and proximity mean you can get quicker from research into commercial.

Yes, of course. With regard to HIV, we have got a very strong franchise with dolutegravir. We've been pursuing long-acting therapies for the simple reason that patients prefer longer-acting therapies in HIV. It means that instead of having a daily oral tablet that reminds them that they've got HIV every day, and they stand the risk of viral breakthrough if they forget a tablet, and then they can pass HIV onto somebody else. The benefit is with a long-acting injectable, is that they are protected for the course of the duration of that injection. At the moment, we've got 2 months on the market, which means the person's got to have an injection six times a year. So we've got 2 months on the market, and we are the leader in terms of HIV treatment for long-acting injectables.

It's probably important to say that an integrase inhibitor is at the core of this, and we're the only company with integrase inhibitor at the core of HIV long-acting therapies. Now, to Justin's point, we are moving increasingly from once every 2 months to once every 4 months. That is a big transformation because it means the person goes in three times a year, usually coincides with their testing for sexually transmitted diseases, so it fits with that. We're anticipating having the final readout of that in 2027 and the launch in 2028. So that's basically three times a year. Then the next stage is to move to basically lasting for six months, long-acting injectables for six months, which is twice a year. So that's a big step forward. Treatment is the most value opportunity, and it's 90% of the market in HIV, so it's a large component.

This is where we are in the leadership in terms of when we will bring those products to launch. To the point about the patient, when we have done a study, we did a SOLAR study. 90% of patients prefer long-acting injectables to orals. It is because of this lack of stigma. It is no need for a reminder to take their medication, and it is the assurance of protection. From the physician point of view, we did a study called LATITUDE, which was again comparing daily orals with long-acting injectables. Again, the data monitoring committee stopped it early because the data was so compelling that people were more protected with long-acting injectables. This is the big change that is going on now and will continue to go on as we launch longer-acting therapies in HIV.