GlaxoSmithKline, the blue-chip UK pharmaceutical company which is a rare borrower in the debt markets, has raised $2.5bn (€2.1bn) with a debut benchmark offering in the dollar bond market.

Citigroup, whose subsidiary Schroder Salomon Smith Barney arranged GSK's £5bn debt issuance programme in December 2001, and JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers, two of the dealer banks on that programme, led the dollar bond.