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Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline reported a fall in annual profit, and forecast a further fall in growth for the current fiscal year on expectations for increased sales of its lower margin Covid-19 antibody Xevudy.
For the year ended 31 December, pre-tax fell 22% to £5.44 billion year-on-year as revenue was flat at £34.11 billion.
The fall in profit was blamed on a unfavourable comparator as last year's results benefited from the sale of Horlicks and other consumer brands.
Revenue, meanwhile, was held back by a fall in vaccines sales, and weakness in the consumer healthcare business.
Vaccines turnover fell 3% to £6,778 million in the year as pandemic adjuvant sales was partially offset by lower demand for routine adult vaccination due to COVID-19 vaccination programme deployment and disease circulation across regions.
The company declared a dividend of 23 pence per share.
Looking ahead, the company said it expected that COVID-19 solutions would contribute a similar sales level to 2021, but the contribution to boost to profit would be 'substantially lower' due to the increased proportion of lower margin Xevudy sales.
'We expect this to reduce new GSK Adjusted Operating profit growth (including COVID-19 solutions in both years) by between 5% to 7%. We continue to discuss further opportunities with governments,' the company said.