Good afternoon, and welcome to the GSK Shareholder Webcast. My name is Sarah, and I am your event manager. And please note that today's call is being recorded. And I'm now going to hand over to Sir Jonathan Simon, Chairman of GSK. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for this shareholder webcast. I'm John Simons, Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline plc. First of all, I want to start by saying I do hope you and your families are well and coping in this difficult time. And thank you for taking the time to join us.
I'm sorry that the first time I get to meet you as chairman of GSK is in this unusual format, but we find ourselves in very exceptional times. I'd like to start by explaining the format we have had to follow for this year's AGM in order to comply with the current restrictions related to the COVID nineteen pandemic. At 02:30 this afternoon, our AGM was held here at GSK House at a closed meeting attended by myself and Victoria White, our company secretary. The quorum for our shareholder meetings is to shareholders present in person or by proxy and entitled to vote. Therefore, we were able to meet the quorum requirements at this closed meeting in accordance with the government's current stay at home measures.
We wrote to all of our shareholders in early early April twenty twenty to explain these arrangements. I hope you understand why we had to run our AGM in this way this year. Our priority is to take steps to protect our shareholders, employees, the board, and as a result, to enable GSK to continue to focus on providing health care to patients in need. In order to meet these stringent requirements, we encouraged all shareholders to submit proxy votes. All the votes validly submitted by shareholders before the AGM have been counted, and I'm pleased to report that all resolutions were passed.
In almost all cases, the votes for approval of the resolution were in the high 90%. The vote for the remuneration report was 94.5%, and the remuneration policy was 88.2%. We will continue to work with shareholders to improve our overall approval ratings in the coming year. The full results will shortly be announced to the London Stock Exchange and published on our website. And thank you to all of those shareholders who took time to submit their proxy votes in advance of the AGM.
Your continued engagement is very much appreciated. This formal part of the AGM is very important and provides us with the ability to operate the business effectively for the year year ahead. For the substantive part of the AGM, however, has always been where the board and management are held to account and can be questioned by our shareholders and owners. This webcast is the closest way we could replicate that element of the AGM. We did not want you to miss the opportunity to engage with the company and therefore we have invited you to this hour long meeting today.
I will start this event with a few remarks, following which I'll hand over to our CEO, Emma Walmsley, who will give you an update on GSK's performance in 2019 and our response to COVID nineteen. I will then open the session to your questions. And just as a reminder, if you're joining us today online via the webcast, you can submit your question by going to the questions tab on the live web page and typing in your question. If you're joining us by telephone, you could submit your question by pressing star and then one on your keypad. Please note that you will be placed in a queue until the Q and A session starts.
But before we begin, I'd like to introduce my fellow board members as well as Emma. Joining us on the line today are Ian McKay, our chief financial officer, and Hal Barron, our chief scientific officer, who will be available also to answer your questions. Also, all of our non executive directors, Mindy Banga, our senior independent director, doctor Vivian Cox, Lynn Elsenhomes, doctor Lori Glimcher, doctor Jesse Goodman, Judy Lewent, and Erz Rona are also listening in to this event. I'm also very pleased to welcome Charlie Bancroft, who joined the board on the May 1. Charlie brings with him a wealth of financial management experience in global biopharma and consumer healthcare, which will be invaluable to the board in the coming years as it oversees the delivery of GSK's strategy.
On joining the board, Charlie became a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and has agreed to succeed Judy Louent as chair of this committee following approval of GSK's 2020 annual report in the 2021. I'm enormously grateful to Judy for agreeing to stay on for another year to facilitate a smooth handover. Last year also saw sir Philip Hampton stepping down as chairman as well as Ian Mackay becoming our chief financial officer replacing Simon Dingemans. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Philip and Simon for their service to GSK and wish them well in their future endeavors as well as to formally welcome Ian. Before I hand over to Emma, I'd like to make a few comments on our company.
This is my first AGM as your chairman. I'm very happy and proud to say that knowing that I've joined a company with a remarkable history and what I believe to be a very exciting future. I've worked in the life sciences industry for most of my career, and I know how just how important the industry and the innovation it brings is to making a meaningful difference to patients' lives around the world. This has never been more true than in the current pandemic we find ourselves in with COVID nineteen. Now more than ever, we need the scientific expertise and innovations that the life sciences sector contributes that are essential to help the world emerge to the from the current pandemic.
As you will hear from Emma in a moment, few companies are better placed to contribute to this than GSK. But I'm also particularly pleased to see how the industry is working together and pooling its expertise around the world. The board has worked closely with Emma and her team to support the company's response to COVID nineteen, which has been extraordinary. In a moment, Emma will describe the work we are doing to protect our employees, to ensure that we can continue to operate and to find solutions. I could not be more proud of our response and the leadership that Emma and her team are showing every day.
All of our employees around the world are committed to this course, and I want to thank them all. And none more so than the 20,000 employees in our manufacturing and r and d organizations who have continued working at sites throughout the crisis to ensure patients continue to receive their medicines, vaccines, and consumer health care products. The board is receiving regular updates on the progress we are making to help with the potential solutions to the pandemic, whether that is through medicines that have the potential to treat COVID, such as our work with Via Biotechnology or through our partnerships with several organizations to develop a vaccine, most notably with Sanofi. Of course, the board is also closely monitoring with management the impact of COVID nineteen on our business. Unlike many other sectors and businesses, I'm pleased to report that we are confident in the strength and sustainability of GSK and our continued ability to deliver on the long term goals of the company.
But like everyone, we are watching very carefully how the economic impact of the pandemic unfold. In a moment, Emma will talk through the progress made in 02/2019. Seems like a very long time ago now. But before that, I want to highlight a couple of strategic themes. The Board was pleased to see the positive operational performance through 2019 with growth in sales and earnings and good cash generation.
This was an excellent performance in a year when Advair finally went generic in The US. Our performance allowed an 80p dividend to be paid for the year as we expected. The board supports management's clear framework for capital allocation with its first priority of investing in the long term growth of the business. The board was also pleased to see the progress made by Emma Howe and the team to strengthen the pipeline, particularly in oncology. This progress further validates the new approach to r and d set out by management, which focuses on the immune system, the use of genetics, and advanced analytical technologies.
Continued progress in r and d is critical as we prepare to split into two new world leading companies in biopharma and consumer health care. I'm pleased to report that in my many conversations with shareholders during my first month, I've received strong support for the group's strategic direction and the priorities set by Emma and her team. The board is very engaged on this issue, we've set up a new committee to work closely with management and to provide support and direction as we prepare for this split. Before concluding, I'd like to mention the work the board is doing on ESG matters. We are, rightly in my view, seeing increased focus from investors on the value of ESG or environmental, social and governance factors to improve our overall performance.
I believe GSK's purpose, strategy and priorities are well placed to deliver long term value for society and shareholders. And while our immediate focus is on the response to COVID, we are committed to driving global health innovation, whether that be in tuberculosis, AMR, access and affordability of our medicines, or in tackling climate change. With that, I'll stop for now and hand you over to Emma. Emma?
Thank you, John. Hello, and good afternoon, everyone. I want to first echo John's comments on hoping you're all staying well and regret that we can't be with you in person during this challenging period. I'm going to talk about our performance in 2019 in a moment, but first want to spend a few minutes detailing how the company has responded to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Responding to this extraordinary public health crisis is right at the heart of our purpose for the company, and GSK's portfolio is highly relevant and needed at this time.
We've mobilized across the entire company to implement a comprehensive approach to navigate this crisis focused on three areas, our people, business continuity, and bringing solutions. Over the last few months, our people have shown tremendous courage, commitment, and resilience. As John has said, we have thousands of employees working tirelessly to ensure our products continue to reach the patients and consumers that rely on them, and we're working hard to make sure all our employees are protected and supported, providing them with the technology and resources they need, whether they're working in a factory, a lab, or in new circumstances from home. We are implementing our business continuity plans across all essential operations, including in our manufacturing and supply network and for our clinical trials. Overall, I am pleased to report that our business continues to perform well and has demonstrated resilience in the face of significant pressure and uncertainty.
Importantly, we're using our science and technology to support the global response to the pandemic. As one of the world's leading vaccines companies, our primary focus is on developing a vaccine, which of course will be called to the exit plan the world needs. We're working with a number of companies across the globe on this and a few weeks ago announced our unprecedented collaboration with Sanofi. In this partnership, Sanofi will contribute the antigen element of the vaccine. This is based on their recombinant DNA technology and has been used in their existing flu vaccine and will contribute our proven pandemic adjuvant technology.
This combination of a protein based antigen together with an adjuvant is very well established and used in a number of vaccines today. And when added to some vaccines, an adjuvant can immune response and has been shown to create a stronger and longer lasting immunity against infections. And using an adjuvant can also be very important, therefore, in a pandemic situation as it may reduce the amount of vaccine protein required per dose, which allows more vaccine doses to be produced and therefore contributes to protecting more people. There is, of course, a long way to go, but teams from both companies are working urgently on this, and if everything does go to plan, we aim to make the vaccine available and with the capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses a year by the 2021. Alongside vaccines, we're also exploring therapeutic options.
In April, we entered into a new collaboration with San Francisco based company, Vir Biotechnology, to identify and accelerate the development of new antiviral antibodies that could be used to fight COVID nineteen or future coronavirus outbreaks. Together, we plan to accelerate two very promising antibody candidates into phase two trials in the next three to five months. Beyond vaccines and medicines, we're also making other contributions using our capabilities and expertise. For example, here in The UK, we've joined forces with AstraZeneca to help The UK's national testing centers and are setting up a new laboratory with Cambridge University to help boost testing for COVID nineteen. So I hope that gives you something of an overview of our plans and commitment to being part of the solution for COVID-nineteen and our confidence in our management of business continuity.
As you may have seen last week, we delivered strong results for Q1 twenty twenty, with growth in sales and earnings reflecting good underlying performance and increased demand, including COVID related stock building for many of our products. Looking ahead, there is a period of considerable uncertainty, in the next few months, but we remain confident in the resilience and sustainability of GSK's business and our ability to deliver on our long term priorities of innovation, performance and trust. Turning now to 2019. It was a year of good progress across each of these three priorities. Sales grew to £33,800,000,000 an increase of 8% at constant exchange rates.
We've been focused on the commercial execution of new products, and I was particularly pleased to see their significant growth contribution last year. Stand out among them was Shingrix, our vaccine for shingles, which had a remarkable first year with sales of £1,800,000,000 In Respiratory, we also saw good growth from Trelegy, our three in-one inhaler for COPD and Eucala, our biologic for asthma. And in HIV, we had total sales of GBP 4,900,000,000.0 with our new two drug regimens already contributing sales of £422,000,000 Total earnings per share increased 23 CER to 93.9p and adjusted earnings per share grew 1% CER to 123.9p. We also saw good cash generation in the year at £5,100,000,000 and as the Chairman said, we confirmed a full year dividend of 80p. As I've consistently said, strengthening our pipeline is our number one priority for the long term.
Hal has introduced a new approach to R and D focused on the science of the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies. And in all, we now have 37 medicines and 15 vaccines currently in clinical development. In 2019, delivered eight regulatory filings for new medicines, six positive readouts from six pivotal studies, including three in oncology, and progressed four new assets into pivotal studies. I was particularly pleased to see positive data on all three of our oncology pivotal readouts last year: Zejula for ovarian cancer, belantamab mafodotin in the fourth line treatment of multiple myeloma and dostarlimab in the second line treatment of recurrent endometrial cancer. We submitted each of these assets to regulators for approval.
Just last week, we received FDA approval of Zejula for first line maintenance treatment of ovarian cancer. We acquired Tesaro because we believed PARP inhibitors were relevant to more women than just those with the BRCA mutation. That has now proven to be the case and a significant milestone for the company and importantly for many women with this terrible disease. In HIV, we saw a strong flow of positive data that further supports the transition we are making to two drug regimens, and we have received the first approval globally for Cabenuva, the first long acting monthly injectable for HIV, which offers the option to reduce the need to take a medicine every single day to instead taking it just 12 times a year. In addition to strengthening our pipeline, we are also making good progress in the delivery of other strategic goals.
We're moving at pace with the integration of our new Consumer Healthcare joint venture following the successful completion of the transaction with Pfizer in July. Since closing the joint venture, we've announced 90% of leadership roles,
completed closes in all major markets and co located employees in 31 locations globally. And as I said to shareholders last year, our intention is to separate around three years from closing that transaction.
Since So we've started now a two year program, which we're calling Future Ready to prepare the group for separation into two highly relevant companies, one in biopharma, focused on science related to immunology and the other in consumer health. Our program will help set up competitive capabilities and cost base for both companies, along with the right capital structures to create significant value for patients, consumers and shareholders. These will be two companies whose purpose, priorities and capabilities have never seemed more relevant than now. Before handing back to John, I want to finish by explaining how proud I am that GSK has consistently taken action to make a broader contribution to society in addition to delivery of financial returns. Our company wide response to COVID has been a clear demonstration of that, but also many other recent initiatives related to global health and health security.
Following the publication of excellent data for our candidate vaccine for TB, still the world's biggest infectious disease killer, in early twenty twenty we secured a groundbreaking agreement with the new Gates Medical Research Institute to develop the vaccine for use in low income countries. We also filed regulatory submissions for a new formulation of our latest HIV medicine, which will expand access for use by children in resource poor settings, and I was particularly pleased to see that last year we were ranked the top pharma company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the first time. Cultural change at GSK also remains very important, and we're we're also making good progress on this to develop a more performance focused culture, which retains a strong emphasis on purpose, values and the power of our people. Our regular employee survey showed excellent engagement scores at all levels of the organization over the course of last year. I'm proud and thankful for the fantastic contribution from all GSK employees, never more obvious than through the challenges we face now.
To close, GSK performed well in 2019, making good progress against our strategic priorities. We've had a very strong start to 2020 and looking ahead, whilst we clearly face a period of considerable uncertainty, we're confident in the resilience and sustainability of GSK's business and our ability to deliver on our long term priorities of innovation, performance and trust and our purpose as a company to help people all over the world do more, feel better and live longer. And with that, I'll hand back to John.
Thanks, Emma. I hope you'll agree that that's an impressive set of achievements. We have approximately thirty five minutes left for questions. And I may and therefore, may I ask you to keep your questions as concise as possible and limit yourself to one question to give other shareholders a chance to ask their questions. We do have a sharp finish today at 03:45.
And if we don't have the opportunity to answer all questions, we will provide answers to you afterwards. If you're asking your question by telephone, the operator will introduce you. I will alternate questions between those submitted by shareholders online line via the webcast and those from the conference call line. But we have had in the recent weeks, we have had a number of questions submitted by shareholders. And while you are thinking of your questions, I might just go through because they are, I think, helpful in defining some of the some of the things.
So the first question, there'll be many questions on separation and our preparations for the separation of the consumer health care business. And do we have enough fast moving consumer goods experience on the board, and when will we beginning to plan for the new board? Obviously, the board continuously reviews the composition of the skills and capabilities that we need to deliver our strategy. We actually have quite strong consumer health care expertise on the board today. Vindi Banga had extensive experience with Unilever.
Charlie Bancroft, who has just joined us on the board, was recently on the board of Colgate Palmolive. And I'm sure nobody needs reminding that Emma has considerable experience from seventeen years at L'Oreal as well as eight years running the consumer healthcare business here. So we are very well positioned to optimize the business portfolios of both the consumer health and the biopharmaceutical business. At the point of separation, we will, of course, have to build two boards, but we will not focus or begin to build the new Consumer Health Board until we're much closer to the date of separation. It's very important that the board we have today act exclusively in the interest of all shareholders.
There have also been questions on why we decided not to issue dividends by way of checks. Obviously, this is inconvenient to a number of people, but the decision to remove checks was really because we can be much more certain that shareholders receive their payments in a much more efficient and secure way. There's also no risk of the money being lost. Interestingly, over 14,000 payments to our shareholders failed to be cashed in every year and have to be replaced by checks. So clearly, there's a major efficiency benefit by going to direct payment.
Also, share price performance is another theme and particularly the performance on TSR. I would say that in 02/2019, the GSK share price increased by 19.3% against the FTSE, which in FTSE one hundred, which increased by 12%. This year in 2000 and in 2020, our share price is broadly flat, but that's against the market that I think everybody well understands on this call that is down by over 20%. The relative improvement of or the relative performance of GSK shares against the sector has improved since 02/2017. That, in my view, is no surprise because 2017 is the year when Emma became chief executive.
And she has brought with her clarity and focus around the priorities of the organization. As she's already mentioned, innovation, growing and strengthening the pipeline. 2019 was an exceptional year in pipeline progress. P performance, the delivery of stretching goals, and the delivery of promises of what we set out to achieve, and with no loss of focus on our reputation and the work that we do on the global health agenda and the trust. I believe IPT is essential to the delivery of the aims and aspirations of GSK.
And if we continue to be successful in delivering against that, I have no doubt that the relative TSR will follow. Finally, before I go to your questions, there has been a question on our strategies relating to being a living wage employer. I'm delighted to say, and I think Emma has well emphasized in her comments, the priority that we place on our employees and being a good employer. And therefore, we are we are committed to the modern employer as part of our trust agenda. This includes ensuring that GSK specifies working hours in all its contracts.
We do not support zero hour contracts, and we have extensive consultation pro processes with all of our employees to ensure that we are continually seeking to improve the environment in which they operate and, therefore, that they can continue to deliver outstandingly well as they do today. So with that, I'm now going to ask Victoria for the first question from the web, please.
Certainly. So the first question is from Max Booth. He has asked, to what extent will the company monetize any treatments or vaccinations for COVID nineteen?
This is a very important question and one that Emma and her team have spent a lot of time both thinking through, but also communicating. And I will certainly not do justice to the answer to that question. So, Emma?
Well, thanks, John. And a very important question. I mean, the first thing to say is our number one priority is to actually get to solutions that work, demonstrate efficacy, that we get there as soon as we possibly can because of the global emergency and particularly in the in the case of vaccines, although it would be relevant for any potential treatments too. But in the case of vaccine, you're obviously looking to eventually get to protect billions of people. So we would like to be able to really prioritize the question of scale, which is why we've also said that more than one more than one vaccine will be required.
With that in mind, and this is highly relevant to the monetization question, we right from the beginning on our vaccine approach pursued this strategy of bringing an adjuvant because it can be antigen sparing, but underpin that with four principles. One is that we wanted to go in partnership and because collaboration can get to a potentially a better solution faster. Go for a global approach, and that is highly relevant in terms of the third point, which is a commitment to access and making sure this gets to the people that need it most. That may well be framed by access in terms of developing countries and potentially donations, but it can also be about the people that need it most in terms of, for example, access prioritizing healthcare workers. And then lastly, the fourth principle for our vaccines approach was about making sure that we prioritize pandemic preparedness, and that's key in terms of investments going forward.
So the world and we are contributing and supporting the world being better ready for further outbreaks or the next one. On that basis, we were very clear that when we look as a whole at transversely at our potential collaborations in vaccines, we do not expect to profit from them during the pandemic phase because any short term profits that we might make from being part of a vaccine or vaccine solution, we would be looking to reinvest either in terms of our further science and technology, pandemic preparedness, that's either with our own investments or in partnership with others, but also use those funds to help contribute to donations, which we would also partner on with organizations, governments and agencies that will be focused on that for the developing world. So that would be my thought.
Thank you. Do we have any more questions?
That's all the questions we've had in on the webcast.
So perhaps we'll give you a minute or two to see if there are any questions that people would like to submit. Okay. Well, in that case, if there are no further questions, I would like to thank you for joining us today. I hope you found the remarks from Emma and I valuable, particularly in relation to the work that we are doing with the current pandemic. If there are questions that you subsequently wish to wish to ask, you can, of course, contact us at any time either by email to our company secretary or writing to our registered office.
Again, thank you very much again. Your continued support and your understanding during these exceptional times are very much appreciated, And we'd like to wish you all good health in the weeks and months ahead. And hopefully next year, we will get to meet in person. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone. That concludes your conference call for today. You may now disconnect. Thank you for joining,
and stay safe.