GSK quarterly profits up by 9 percent

GlaxoSmithKline announced this morning that fourth-quarter net income rose on strong U.S. sales, including of the drugmaker's Avandia diabetes treatment, Advair asthma medicine and vaccines.

Still, total revenue was hurt as generic competition ate into sales, especially in Europe. As with other drugmakers, GSK faces increasing pressure to develop new products to replace drugs that are losing patent protection, which opens them up to cheaper generic rivals.

For example, GSK's anti-nausea drug Zofran lost patent protection in December and a New Jersey company won approval from U.S. regulators to sell cheaper copies.

"Of course we have generic risks," Jean-Pierre Garnier, GSK chief executive, told analysts on a conference call. "We are a big company, we'll always have generic risks."

But GSK's drug development pipeline is working well and new products coming to market promise to replace sales lost to generic competitors.

"We're determined to produce in the good years and the bad," Garnier said. "We can deliver."

The British pharmaceutical company has one of its twin U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park and employs about 6,000 workers in the Triangle.

GSK's American depositary receipts, similar to stock for foreign companies, rose 45 cents to $55.80 in midday trading.

GSK reported $9.9 billion in revenue for the three months ended Dec. 31, up 9 percent from the same period a year ago. Net income rose to $2.36 billion.

For the whole year, GSK reported $37.2 billion in sales, up 9 percent from a year ago. Annual profits were up 19 percent to $10.2 billion.