Luke Miels had been chief executive of GSK for only six months when he announced the biggest bet of his career. This week’s $10.6bn megadeal with US cancer biotech Nuvalent was the UK pharma group’s largest biotech acquisition in more than 25 years.
It was also a statement of intent by the soft-spoken 51-year-old Australian. GSK is seeking to build a cancer business that can compete with larger rivals, help it meet ambitious growth targets and go towards offsetting the loss of patent protections on its best-selling medicines elsewhere.
People who know Miels were not surprised by the scale of the deal. “He sees the bigger picture and is not an incremental person,” says one senior executive who worked with him at AstraZeneca. “When you come into a new job, you have to make a big statement to show where you’re taking the company.”