We have a challenging and inspiring mission: to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. This mission gives us the purpose to develop innovative medicines and products that help millions of people around the world. In fact, we are the only pharmaceutical company to tackle the World Health Organization抯 three憄riority抎iseases朒IV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Headquartered in the UK and with operations based in the US, we are one of the industry leaders, with an estimated seven per cent of the world's pharmaceutical market.

But being a leader brings responsibility. This means that we care about the impact that we have on the people and places touched by our mission to improve health around the world.

It also means that we must help developing countries where debilitating disease affects millions of people and access to life-changing medicines and vaccines is a problem. To meet this challenge, we are committed to providing discounted medicines where they are needed the most.

As a company with a firm foundation in science, we have a flair for research and a track record of turning that research into powerful, marketable drugs. Every hour we spend more than300,000 (US$562,000) to find new medicines.

We produce medicines that treat six major disease areas朼sthma, virus control, infections, mental health, diabetes and digestive conditions. In addition, we are a leader in the important area of vaccines and are developing new treatments for cancer.