GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) is a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Brentford, England.^[2] Established in 2000, by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, GSK was the world's sixth largest pharmaceutical company according to Forbes as of 2019, after Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi, and Merck & Co.^{[n 1][3]} GSK is the tenth largest pharmaceutical company and #296 on the 2019 Fortune 500, ranked behind other pharmaceutical companies including China Resources, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Sinopharm, Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, Merck, and Sanofi.^[4]

The company has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. As of August 2016, it had a market capitalisation of £81 billion (about US$107 billion), the fourth largest on the London Stock Exchange.^[5] It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company developed the first malaria vaccine, RTS,S, which it said in 2014, it would make available for five percent above cost.^[6] Legacy products developed at GSK include several listed in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, such as amoxicillin, mercaptopurine, pyrimethamine, and zidovudine.^[7]

In 2012, GSK pleaded guilty to promotion of drugs for unapproved uses, failure to report safety data, and kickbacks to physicians in the United States and agreed to pay a US$3 billion (£1.9bn) settlement. It was the largest health-care fraud case to date in that country and the largest settlement by a drug company.^[8]