All things considered, Glaxo Smith Kline is weathering the economic conditions really well. This could be largely due to the number of NEEDED items they produce (like chickenpox vaccines). Looking back at the stock performance (which I realize isn't a company's only indicator of success), they have been holding pretty steadily for a number of years. The five year high was in 2007 and was over $50. In early 2009, they had a decline to just under $30, but they have returned from that slump very quickly.
Interestingly enough, this company was in a slump - holding to under $10 a share until the late 1990s. Their "golden drug" Avandia, brought about this rapid increase after it was introduced to the market in 1999. Then in 2007 this drug's sales plummeted, just as GSK was showing their 5 year peak of stock success. This drop in sales was due to findings that the drug, while an effective treatment for diabetes blood sugar control, was possibly to blame for heart conditions in many of the patients in a trial. Interestingly, today they crossed that $40 mark I was wondering about yesterday!
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