GlaxoSmithKline PLC CEO Emma Walmsley said the company will increase spending on research and development to advance the 17 experimental oncology assets that it seeks to move toward approval.

Walmsley was speaking to reporters after the Brentford, London-based company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results, boosted by a surge in demand for the Shingrix shingles vaccine, which came in 43% higher than consensus expectations. R&D in the pharmaceutical business rose 9% to £971 million, below SG Cowen's forecast £1.02 billion. R&D expenditure in vaccines was £162 million and £62 million in consumer healthcare, GSK said.

"I am not going to guide specifically to the increase spend planned in R&D, mainly because we do see it as a priority for capital allocation," Walmsley said on the media call following the results. "Our R&D spend has gone up this quarter, and we expect those increases to accelerate later through the year, both because of the full impact of bringing in the Tesaro business, but also across the rest of our oncology portfolio as data reads out."

GSK more than doubled the number of experimental oncology medicines in its pipeline in 2018, after pivoting away from its traditional dependence on respiratory products like Advair, which succumbed to generic competition in February. Having all but exited the oncology space in 2015 as part of its asset swap with Novartis AG, GSK's head of R&D, Hal Barron, has restructured R&D with a renewed emphasis on oncology, using its experimental BCMA skin cancer treatment as a springboard for expansion.

Walmsley said that in the near-term, she will focus on integrating the acquisitions undertaken in the highly competitive cancer space last year — notably Tesaro Inc. and the MERCK KGaA deal— adding that any business development would be on a smaller scale.

In the vaccines business, where sales increased to £1.5 billion, GSK said it was dropping an experimental universal flu vaccine, as well as one for strep pneumonia. Still, Walmsley highlighted an RSV vaccine in development and one for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder as potentially exciting assets. Sales in the HIV franchise rose to £1.1 billion, and GSK received approval for the first-ever two-drug regiment treatment, Dovato , which launched during the quarter in the U.S.

"The Shingrix beat is positive as a key future growth driver, in our view, but Pharma overall is likely perceived to be broadly in-line given the benefit of Advair which now faces US generic erosion," said Peter Welford, analyst at Jefferies with a "buy" recommendation on GSK. "Consumer sales are just light as also reported by peers."

Walmsley said GSK may move into the technology of manufacturing cell and gene therapy, which is notoriously complex and expensive. "GSK has quite an exciting way to look at what you could call the manufacturing of these therapies that can be potentially a differentiator for GSK. That is really where a lot of the challenge lies and that's including the impact that can have on the economics of this new science, so more to come in the future."