(Reuters). Despite beating analyst expectations, GSK in Britain beat its results for the first quarter on Wednesday. It maintained its projections for 2022 based on strong uptake of its medications ahead of the scheduled listing of its large consumer health division in July.

Spin-off of the consumer venture Pfizer GSK (NYSE:), now christened Haleon has placed GSK’s future under pressure as Chief Executive Emma Walmsley is subject to activist investor Elliot’s demands for its pipeline. GSK has agreed to spend $1.9B to acquire Sierra Oncology, (NASDAQ:)

GSK saw adjusted earnings rise 32% to $9.78 billion ($12.30 billion) in the three-months to March 31. Analysts had expected earnings of 30 pence per share on revenues of 9.15 billion pounds, a company-compiled consensus https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/investors/analyst-consensus/analyst-consensus showed.

Analysts had expected 1.3 billion dollars in sales from the COVID-19 treatment. However, this was well above analysts’ predictions of 1.1 billion.

Even though GSK’s Xevudy (chemically known as sotrovimab) was proven to work against Omicron, new data suggests that it is unlikely to be effective against the dominant BA.2 variant in the United States. This treatment has the largest buyer.

London-listed Unilever (NYSE: ) rejected the December 50 billion pound tender for its consumer unit. The company said it was expecting to see organic revenue growth between 4% and 6%.

($1 = 0.7952 pounds)