VACCINES company PowderJect is taking control of its own destiny by setting up a UK-wide direct sales force.

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The move marks an inportant transitional phase for PowderJect from a research-based start-up company to a profitable revenue earning business.

PowderJect, which manufactures flu jabs at its Evans Vaccines plant in Speke, is embarking on a recruitment campaign to extend its marketing infrastructure and promote its own brands within its home market.

About 25 specialist vaccines sales and marketing staff will be taken on, backed by the group's international team of brand managers, account directors and marketing experts.

The main focus of the drive, which will begin next September when the current marketing deal with Celltech expires, will be the Speke-made Fluvirin vaccine.

By marketing products itself, PowderJect will retain greater value and position itself as a potential marketing partner for other vaccine firms.

The group already has its own sales team in the Nordic region and hopes to extend the system through other European markets.

Chairman and chief executive Dr Paul Drayson said: ``The company has grown significantly over the last two years, and with anticipated vaccine revenues of over pounds 160m this year it makes strategic sense for us to expand our commercial organisation, to ensure we offer the best possible service to our customers with a sales team entirely focused on vaccines.'

PowderJect has transformed itself from a drug delivery specialist to a pure vaccine company in the past year, benefiting along the way from buoyant demand for flu injections and other vaccines.

In May the company joined a select band of European biotechnology companies to report a profit. PowderJect revealed pre-tax profits were pounds 100,000 in the year to end March compared to a loss of pounds 20.6m last year.

In the current year, PowderJect estimated, profits would exceed pounds 25m.