Emerging markets sales lift Glaxo

Glaxo has major sites across the UK

Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced a big jump in quarterly profits after sales in emerging markets grew by a quarter.

Pre-tax profits came in at £1.91bn ($3.1bn), a rise of 23% on the £1.55bn recorded for the same period last year.

Turnover rose to £6.76bn, up 15% on the £5.88bn level seen a year ago.

Glaxo said that the strong results were the direct result of the firm diversifying away from a "dependency on white pills and western markets".

New markets

Less than 30% of the company's sales were generated from these products and markets, it said.

Sales to emerging markets now represent 14% of total sales, and Glaxo said it was looking for further investment opportunities in those markets.

Last month it signed an agreement to launch Lucozade across China.

Sales in the US, however, fell by 12% due to increased competition from generic drugs. Glaxo said 2010 would, therefore, be a "challenging" year in the US.

Despite a weak performance in the US, the company said it expects to see further overall sales growth in the final three months of the year, including "significant" sales of flu products.