Glaxo plots buyout of Novartis’ consumer healthcare stake

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that top GSK shareholders had claimed that they had been braced to expect the company to buy out Novartis’s 36.5-percent stake in the UK group’s Consumer Healthcare division. The joint venture was set up about three years ago, as part of a larger deal which saw the two drugmakers swap assets. The London-listed pharmco further has a provision of £8 billion in its accounts in relation to the likely deal with Novartis.