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LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline posteda 10 percent fall in quarterly sales on Wednesday, highlightingsome of the industry pressures behind last week's decision totrade more than $20 billion of assets with Swiss rival Novartis.
Reported sales in the first quarter, which were impacted bythe strength of sterling, totalled 5.61 billion pounds ($9.45billion), generating "core" earnings per share down 20 percentat 21.0 pence.
Analysts, on average, had forecast sales of 5.84 billionpounds and core EPS, which excludes certain items, of 20.7pence, according to Thomson Reuters.
GSK said it still expected sales to grow over the year inconstant exchange rate terms, after a 2 percent decline on thisbasis in the first quarter, but it is no longer giving aspecific figure. Previously it had predicted 2 percent growth.
The company reiterated its target of increasing 2014 EPS bybetween 4 and 8 percent.
The first three months of 2014 were difficult for Britain'sbiggest drugmaker due to slow sales of its top-selling lung drugAdvair, following reduced U.S. reimbursement coverage, and slowtake-up of new lung drug Breo.
Sales in China were also down on a year ago, following adamaging bribery scandal that broke last July.
The global drugs industry is having to contend withincreasing pressure on healthcare spending, prompting a wave ofrestructuring as companies seek to focus on areas of strengthand exit those where they lack the scale to compete.
GSK Chief Executive Andrew Witty aims to do that via a dealwith Novartis to sell its cancer drugs and buy most of the Swissgroup's vaccines, with the two firms also creating an $11billion-a-year consumer health business.
The revamp means GSK in future will get 70 percent of salesfrom its franchises in respiratory medicines, HIV, vaccines andnon-prescription consumer health. ($1 = 0.5936 British Pounds) (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Kate Kelland)
