GLAXOSMITHKLINE is expected to outline plans to target vaccines at the elderly as part of an ambitious strategy aimed at doubling the size of the drug group’s biologics business over the next five years.

Jean Stéphenne, head of GSK Biologics, the company’s vaccine unit, will meet analysts on Thursday to update them on a rapidly expanding pipeline of new drugs that includes about 20 vaccines in late-stage development and four potential blockbusters. The drugs include Cervarix, a potential cure for cervical cancer, Fluarix, a flu jab, Rotarix, an antidiarrhoetic, and a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia.

M Stéphenne is expected to tell analysts that the drugs will underpin double-digit growth at GSK Biologics for at least another decade. He will also focus on several new technologies in an effort to show that the division, which generated sales of £248 million in the first quarter of the year (equivalent to 6 per cent of GSK’s total turnover) is well poised to exploit a boom in demand for its products.

The potential for vaccines is vast. Some analysts predict that the total market will double to more than £10 billion by 2010.

M Stéphenne, who is regarded as a potential successor to JP Garnier, the group’s chief executive, is also expected to flesh out details of a venture with the Institute of Molecular Immunology to develop new technologies that might help to rejuvenate the immune system in the elderly.

GSK’s focus on the elderly market is at present based around Fluarix. At the presentation M Stéphenne will give an update on the flu jab’s regulatory status in America.

GSK expects the US Food and Drug Administraton to approve the jab by August, in time for about 12 million doses to be shipped to the US ahead of the winter immunisation programme.

M Stéphenne is also expected to highlight two other future products specifically targeted at older people: a vaccine to prevent pneumonia from the virus strepto. pneumoniae, now in phase 1 testing on healthy volunteers, and an anti-shingles jab, also in phase 1 trials.

M Stéphenne said: “The flu and shingles markets alone could be worth several billion pounds to us. It’s an attractive market — older people tend to be more pro-active about looking after their health and are therefore more responsive to immunisation.”

Analysts will also be updated on GSK’s push into a new range of vaccines to treat breast, lung, prostate and melanoma cancers.

Scientists are working with outside collaborators on several antigens that might trigger the body’s immune system to attack tumours.

At least two vaccines are at a pivotal stage where the company is aiming to demonstrate so-called “proof of concept”, and results are expected next year.

“The jury is still out on therapeutic vaccines to treat cancer — we will have to wait until 2006 to see if our investment has paid off,” M Stéphenne said.

The presentation reflects GSK’s determination to persuade the City to recognise the potential of its vaccines franchise.

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