GlaxoSmithKline is seeing strong growth from sales in emerging markets, offsetting declines in the U.S. and Europe from competition by generic drugs, Chief Executive Andrew Witty told CNBC Tuesday.
Glaxo came through a period "where we’ve seen a lot of our historic portfolio exposed to generic competition, and business has gone away over the last several years," he said. "We’re now seeing really an emergence from that period."
Sales in Europe and the U.S. have been stabilizing, with very strong growth in the emerging markets in Glaxo's pharmaceuticals business. He said emerging-markets growth has been at a "20% rate in both our pharma and consumer businesses," amounting to one-third of the company's total business.
Glaxo has a "substantial pipeline" of 30 drugs or vaccines in advanced development including respiratory and oncology drugs, with new diabetes and cardiovascular medicines in the works, he said.
"The net of all we’ve seen over the last several quarters is an underlying growth rate emerging at around the 4% or 5% topline level," Witty said. "We expect…we’ll see that underlying growth become our reported growth rate as we go through the year and into 2012."