Haleon Cuts Guidance After Cough Medication Sales Drop — Update

By Aimee Look

Advil-maker Haleon cut its outlook for the year, as it said lower sales of its cough and cold medications weighed on results.

The company, which spun out of pharmaceutical group GSK in 2022, said it now expects full-year organic revenue growth around 2.5%. Haleon at its half-year results in July said it expected organic revenue growth of 3% to 5%.

The British consumer healthcare company's performance was held back by weaker sales in cough, cold and flu products, particularly with lower orders in North America, it said. Its respiratory health category had a 2% fall in organic revenue.

However, before earnings, J.P. Morgan's Celine Pannuti had said that a strong flu season could uplift sales for Haleon, with rising incidences in Europe and the U.S. "An uptick in scanner data in the U.S. and [Western] Europe has spearheaded hopes that Haleon should benefit from growth momentum in upcoming quarters," the analyst wrote.

Other consumer goods companies were held back by a lack of progress in North America this quarter--across various categories--like British Lysol-maker Reckitt and French yogurt producer Danone.

While its respiratory health category's revenue dropped, Haleon's oral health category grew 8.8% organically for the quarter. In the company's international geography, organic revenue grew 6.9% for the quarter.

On an organic basis, Haleon reported an overall 2.6% rise in organic revenue, booking 2.87 billion pounds, equivalent to $3.82 billion.

Also on Thursday, Haleon said it is planning to purchase up to 500 million pounds of shares through a buyback, which it expects to complete by the full-year results in February 2027.

Write to Aimee Look at aimee.look@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 29, 2026 04:03 ET (08:03 GMT)