PHARMACEUTICAL firm GSK has announced a rise in half-year profits and plans to cut costs by £1bn by 2020.

This news comes just a week after the company cancelled plans for a multi-million pound plans for a biopharm facility in Ulverston – where it already employs about 300 people – and announced that it may sell its plant there.

For the first half of 2017, GSK made a pre-tax profit of £1.37bn, a big increase on last year's figure of £242m.

The group said, in an announcement to the London Stock Exchange, that it would be terminating select development programmes which are "unlikely to generate sufficient returns" and had so far taken the decision to cut more than 30 pre-clinical and clinical programmes – including those involved in treatments of hepatitis C, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and solid tumours.

"The group has also undertaken a strategic review of its rare diseases unit and is now considering options for future ownership of these assets," the company said.

Second quarter results, which were also included in the announcement, showed a 12 per cent rise in revenue to £7.3bn.

When stripped of currency effects including the weak pound, turnover grew just three per cent.

The company also managed to cut its pre-tax loss to £178m compared to £318m reported for the same period last year.

GSK has cut its full-year guidance for earnings per share by around two percentage points due to costs linked to the launch of a new HIV drug treatment.

It now forecasts adjusted EPS growth of between three per cent and five per cent on a constant currency basis.

The company's Barrow-born chief executive Emma Walmsley described these results as "another quarter of progress for GSK".

"Our priority for the second half of the year is to maintain this momentum and prepare for the successful execution of several important near-term launches in respiratory, vaccines and HIV," she added.