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LONDON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline kept itsdividend unchanged for the third quarter, breaking a run ofsteadily rising payouts, as U.S. pricing pressure on itstop-selling lung drug Advair eroded sales and profit.
Britain's biggest drugmaker said on Wednesday its 2015dividend was expected to be maintained at the same level as 2014but it plans to return an additional 4 billion pounds ($6.4billion) to shareholders via a special share scheme.
It also announced a further cost-cutting programme and saidit would explore an IPO of a minority stake in its HIV businessViiV Healthcare.
GSK is struggling after a run of weak quarters, piling thepressure on Chief Executive Andrew Witty whose group has alsobeen slapped with a fine of nearly $500 million for bribery inChina.
The immediate concern for investors is the precipitate fallin sales of GSK's 15-year-old respiratory medicine Advair,particularly in the United States where price pressure is acute,and the slow uptake of new respiratory drugs Breo and Anoro.
The weak showing in respiratory medicine, a field GSK hasdominated for decades, comes on top of recent disappointmentswith high-risk experimental drugs in heart disease and cancer,removing some "blue-sky" prospects from GSK's drug pipeline.
The company held its financial outlook for the full year,predicting core earnings per share (EPS) would be "broadlysimilar to 2013" in constant exchange rate terms. That outlookwas already pared back in July from a previous forecast of anincrease 2014 EPS of between 4 and 8 percent.
Third-quarter sales were 5.65 billion pounds, down 10percent from a year earlier. Core EPS -- the measure mostfollowed by investors -- was flat at 27.9 pence.
Analysts, on average, had forecast sales of 5.75 billionpounds and core EPS, which excludes certain items, of 23.9pence, according to Thomson Reuters.(1 US dollar = 0.6231 British pound) (Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Kate Kelland)
