Critics call foul over GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine push

GlaxoSmithKline: shingle minded

Worried about shingles? GlaxoSmithKline is. The drugmaker last month launched UK Shingles Awareness Week — its own invention in partnership with the International Federation on Ageing. TV and social media ads urge over-50s to speak to a healthcare professional. Eamonn Holmes, the TV presenter, has been recruited as an ambassador.

GSK’s urgency to educate follows its shingles vaccine Shingrix gaining UK regulatory approval in September. The campaign forms part of international awareness programmes that run parallel with direct marketing of Shingrix, where permitted, as GSK seeks to extend its lead over the only competitor of note: Merck’s Zostavax, which debuted in 2006 and is no longer sold in the US.

Executives at GSK and Elliott Advisors, the activist investor biting at the company’s heels, both call Shingrix a crown jewel of new GSK. But US sales of the medicine are likely to plateau at about £2bn next year, according to analysts, so continued growth will rely increasingly on markets such as the UK where direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription medicines is banned.

And for some viewers, education looks too much like promotion. “This is a very slick infomercial which is clearly intended to direct people to the company’s own product,” Graham Dutfield, a law professor and author of That High Design of Purest Gold: A Critical History of the Pharmaceutical Industry, told City Insider. “Appealing in this way to patients over the heads of medics and pharmacists . . . is morally questionable.”

GSK defended itself, saying: “Disease awareness campaigns are a valuable and legitimate information source for the public on diseases and conditions. . . . . These campaigns are not linked to specific products, nor do they promote the use of particular medicinal products.”

Ted Baker: fashion forward

There’s been a buzz of late around fashion label Ted Baker that might be based on more than recovery hopes.

David Wolffe, Ted Baker’s chief financial officer, resigned this week with immediate effect. Wolffe was part of a C-suite parachuted in at short notice in 2020 after company founder Ray Kelvin resigned over allegations of inappropriate conduct towards staff, which he has denied. His exit and the death in December of Ted Baker chair John Barton have left Rachel Osborne, chief executive, the only remaining member of the post-Kelvin management team.

People familiar with the company played down talk of a vulnerable boardroom, however. The replacement CFO, former Joules director Marc Dench, is said to be Osborne’s preferred pick to continue a post-pandemic turnround plan focused on reduced discounting and inventory management.

Will it be enough to keep shareholders happy? Ted Baker’s biggest investor, Martin Hughes’ Toscafund, appears supportive having this week upped its stake to 27 per cent from 26.1 per cent. But Kelvin remains second on the list with 11.7 per cent, and has been rumoured to be displeased about what some see as a creeping blandness to the brand.

Traders, meanwhile, have been picking up rumours of bid interest at a valuation as high as £300mn, which would be a more than 70 per cent premium to Thursday’s closing price. A person familiar with the company said there was nothing to the speculation. Ted Baker did not comment.

Jefferies: climate change

The corporate exodus from Russia has added a dimension to next week’s inaugural Jefferies ESG Improvers Summit, whose approach to matters environmental, social and governance is atypical.

In the first session, SNC-Lavalin of Canada will discuss the benefits of nuclear energy and not, presumably, its ongoing efforts to scrap a joint venture with VNIPIneft, a Moscow-based engineer with close links to state-owned oil company Rosneft. SNC sold its oil and gas operations last year but the legacy venture remains, having proved tricky to unpick.

In the second session, Kingspan of Ireland will discuss energy efficient building materials and not, presumably, its Russian division. The insulation maker has a long-established manufacturing base in Leningrad and last year opened a plant in the Stavropol economic development area. “We are monitoring the situation closely and determined to reach the right decision in relation to our business in Russia,” Kingspan said. “It is a complex situation, and the welfare and safety of our staff is our priority.”

Russia won’t be the only ESG elephant in the room. Others include the political scandal tied to SNC’s work in Libya, for which it pled guilty to a fraud charge in 2019, and the ongoing public inquiry investigating whether Kingspan insulation boards contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire.