Dive Brief:
- British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline recently faced $450 million in fines for a bribery scandal in China. The company has also faced declining sales.
- Andrew Witty is facing an overall pay cut, mostly because his bonus was cut by 51%—however, his salary did increase by 2.6% to $1.68 million.
- In other management-related shifts, GSK's new board chairman, Phillip Hampton, will replace the current board chair, Christopher Gent.
Dive Insight:
It's been a rough couple of years for GSK, including 900 U.S. job cuts last year and the company's plans to cut another $1.54 billion in costs over the next three years. As for Witty and others who are being negatively affected by GSK's woes, the board has determined that overall performance is not optimal. In addition to Witty's pay cut and the replacement of the board chair, two other board members, Tom de Saan and Jing Ulrich, will not be rejoining the board.
For FY 2014, revenues were down by 13% to roughly $35 billion, while Q4 sales dropped by 10% to $9.4 billion. Much of the loss in income is attributable to loss of patent protection for Advair.
The company's plan is to retrench by promoting new products in the portfolio and continuing to cut costs.