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* Chances of early consumer unit sale "extraordinarily low"
* HIV and new lung drugs lift GSK quarterly sales
* Q4 core EPS 18.1p vs consensus 17.9p
* Q4 sales 6.29 bln stg vs consensus 6.25 bln (Adds more on options for consumer health business)
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline said onWednesday the chance of it spinning off or selling its consumerhealth business before 2018 was "extraordinarily low", arguingthe group's strategy was delivering, helped by rising sales ofnew medicines.
Growing demand for recently launched HIV and respiratorydrugs helped Britain's biggest drugmaker beat forecasts forfourth-quarter earnings by a small margin, lifting the shares ina sharply lower market.
GSK profits have been pressured by falling sales of ageinglung treatment Advair, as well as last year's $20 billion assetswap with Novartis, which raised exposure to consumerhealth at the expense of higher-margin pharmaceuticals.
In the long term, Chief Executive Andrew Witty believes theshift will create a sustainable and less volatile business, butsome investors believe he could unlock value by divesting thenon-prescription consumer healthcare unit.
Witty does not rule out such an eventual break-up but saidGSK would not be pushed into any early move, despite speculationthe unit could attract interest from the likes of ReckittBenckiser or Procter & Gamble.
"The chances of us doing something in an accelerated timeframe are, I think, extraordinarily low," he told reporters.
New HIV drugs Tivicay and Triumeq once again showed stronggrowth in the quarter and, importantly, there was an encouragingpick-up in demand for new inhaled lung medicines Breo and Anoro.
Both Breo and Anoro had a disappointing start in the keyU.S. market as GSK struggled to secure coverage for them ininsurance plans, but recently prescriptions have increased.
"New product sales are demonstrating good momentum and weare seeing accelerations in uptake in our new respiratoryportfolio," Witty said.
DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH
Sales, in sterling terms, rose 2 percent to 6.29 billionpounds ($9.12 billion) in the three months ended Dec. 31,generating core earnings per share (EPS) down 34 percent at 18.1pence.
Analysts on average had forecast sales of 6.25 billionpounds and core EPS, which excludes certain items, of 17.9p,according to Thomson Reuters.
GSK stuck to its 2016 forecast, first issued last May, fordouble-digit core EPS growth at constant currencies andreiterated that the dividend, one of the stock's mainattractions with a yield of around 6 percent, would be heldsteady through 2017.
But it predicted greater foreign exchange gains in 2016 thanthe market had expected, which analysts said was likely to leadto earnings upgrades. Berenberg Bank said this pointed toearnings some 3 percent higher than current consensus.
The changing shape of the group's business makes itparticularly important that the core pharmaceuticals operationcontinues to deliver.
GSK now predicts 11 key new products will deliver sales of 6billion pounds by 2018, two years earlier than initiallyexpected.
The industry as a whole has seen an improvement in researchproductivity in recent years, with U.S. new drug approvals in2015 at a 19-year high, and GSK said its rate of return on R&Dinvestment had been maintained at 13 percent.
But while more drugs may be getting to market, it is oftenhard to get them quickly adopted and companies also face growingpolitical pressure over the high prices they frequently charge.
Witty said U.S. pricing, as well as difficult economicconditions in Russia, Brazil and the Middle East, representedsignificant uncertainties but he said India was a bright spot.
($1 = 0.6897 pounds)
(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Mark Potter)
