---
title: "Glaxo Wellcome → SmithKline Beecham"
url: "https://mahouse.world/ma-deals/glaxo-wellcome-buy-smithkline-beecham-2000"
type: "M&A deal"
year: "2000"
---

# Glaxo Wellcome → SmithKline Beecham

Two years after talks collapsed over who would run the combined company, Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham agreed a merger of equals by share swap, valued at nearly $76bn, creating GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest drugmaker, with 7.3% of global pharmaceutical sales.

An all-share merger creating GlaxoSmithKline, then the world's largest pharmaceutical company by sales.

- **Acquirer:** Glaxo Wellcome (United Kingdom)
- **Target:** SmithKline Beecham (United Kingdom)
- **Value:** $76B
- **Announced:** January 2000
- **Completed:** December 2000
- **Sector:** Pharma
- **Deal type:** merger

## Why it mattered

Both companies were products of earlier consolidation — Glaxo had bought Wellcome in 1995, and SmithKline Beckman had merged with Beecham in 1989. Talks between them in early 1998 collapsed within a month over how the new company would be managed, amid animosity between Glaxo's chairman Richard Sykes and SmithKline's chief executive Jan Leschly. Leschly's decision to retire reopened the door, and the industry was consolidating around them: Astra had joined Zeneca, Pharmacia & Upjohn had agreed to merge with Monsanto, and Pfizer was bidding for Warner-Lambert.

The terms announced on 17 January 2000 gave Glaxo Wellcome shareholders 58.75% of the new company and SmithKline Beecham shareholders 41.25%, at 0.4552 new shares each. Sykes became non-executive chairman and SmithKline's Jean-Pierre Garnier chief executive, with the board split equally. The combination was worth about $177bn and promised annual cost savings of £1bn after the third year, a quarter to be reinvested in research; both share prices fell on the day. The overlaps were narrow but numerous. The European Commission cleared the deal on 8 May 2000 once the companies agreed to license out drugs including the herpes treatment Famvir and the anti-nausea drug Kytril in Europe. The US Federal Trade Commission required Kytril to go to Roche, Famvir and Denavir to Novartis, ceftazidime to Abbott and Glaxo's US and Canadian Zantac trademarks to Pfizer. The merger completed on 27 December 2000.

## What it left behind

Some liabilities spanned the merger: in 2012 GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $3bn over off-label promotion of Paxil and Wellbutrin, which had begun in 1998, and unreported safety data on Avandia, then the largest health-care fraud settlement in US history. The consumer business, enlarged through joint ventures with Novartis and Pfizer, was demerged as Haleon on 18 July 2022 after GSK turned down offers from Unilever of up to £50bn. In February 2026 the company, now GSK plc, had a market value of $122.6bn — below the $177bn the two partners were worth together when the deal was announced. In a merger of equals the obstacle is often governance rather than price: the 1998 talks foundered on who would lead, and the 2000 deal went through once a retirement settled it.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20020121143035/http://money.cnn.com/2000/01/17/europe/glaxo_deal/