SmithKline Beecham On Adapting To Change

Also at the Bear Stearns meeting, SmithKline Beecham's president of North American pharmaceuticals, Jerry Karabelas, focused on how his company is managing in a changing environment. He said that the three challenges for SB are: managing its pipeline and getting performance from new products; adapting infrastructure to meet the new competitive health care environment; and becoming a world class customer-driven organization.

Dr Karabelas told delegates at the meeting that SB is very confident that it will achieve the goal set in 1990. That is to achieve a product contribution in 1997 consisting of 30% from new products, 20% from its antibiotic Augmentin (amoxicillin clavulanate), 10% from antiulcerant Tagamet (cimetidine) and 35%-40% from other products.

Looking at a breakdown of the company's products in June this year, new products represented 20%, Augmentin 20%, 18% of sales were from Tagamet, and 42% from other products.