SINGAPORE - GLAXOSMITHKLINE plans to start producing vaccines from 2011 in Singapore to fight pneumonia-causing bacteria, which kills more than 1 million children each year around the world.

GSK would take up to two years to test run the plant before commercial production starts, CEO Andrew Witty said.

'It is going to take a year or two to finally make sure all the production processes are running at the appropriate level of quality,' Mr Witty told reporters.

The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine protects infants and children under age two from the bacterium streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, bronchitis, acute sinusitis and inflammation of the inner layer of the heart or endocarditis.

Those kill nearly a million children worldwide each year, 90 per cent of them in developing countries.

The vaccine was introduced in 2000 in the United States and resulted in a sharp drop in pneumococcal disease in children, but is still unavailable in many underdeveloped countries, where it is most urgently needed, because of high costs.

Mr Witty said GSK's new policy on price flexibility would make its vaccines and other drugs more affordable to poor nations.

'Vaccine is particularly important, a potential important product line for the emerging markets and Asia,' he said.

Mr Witty welcomed a World Health Organisation recommendation last week that oral rotavirus vaccines be included in all national immunisation programmes, but said they would not make a significant contribution to GSK's revenues. -- REUTERS

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