GSK Biologicals' major contribution to worldwide health in the future will be to provide improved vaccines and to continue the partnership with health providers and the community.

* Childhood deaths

In 1997, one third of all deaths were due to infectious and parasitic disease.[1] This means that each day nearly 50,000 people across the world die from infectious disease

Political and socioeconomic changes in many parts of the world, together with population movements, cause an alarming re-emergence of diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, malaria ad syphilis, and causes of tuberculosis and HIV are also increasing.[3] GSK Biologicals' challenge is to develop vaccines against these diseases, that will benefit people who live and travel in the countries of high endemicity.

GSk Biologicals' investment in research and development has grown significantly over the last 10 years. It is now stronger than it has ever been, improving existing vaccines, dveloping user-friendly combinations of vaccines and exploring new types of vaccines using state of the art techniques such as recombinant DNA, naked DNA, conjugation technologies and adjuvants.

Advances in the understanding of the immune system have led GSK Biologicals' research scientists to investigate a group of potential immunological treatments called 'pharmaccines'. In the same way as traditional vaccines 'prime' the body to recognise specific viruses and bacteria and fight off the attack, pharmaccines 'prime' the bodys immune system to recognise biological factors of cells affected with chronic disease and destroy them. This provides hope to cancer patients who will be armed to fight of their tumours. The potential of pharmaccines to treat serious chronic infectious diseases such as hepatitis B is also being intensively studied.

GSK Biologicals is also working on an anti-allergy vaccine. This has the potential to end common but debilitating disorders that affect millions of people, such as allergic asthma, hay fever and food allerfies.

Vaccination has produced some exciting results. For example, a clear link has been demonstrated between hepatitis B incidence & the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, or liver cancer). The prevention of hepatitis B results in a reduction of HCC, as has been observed in Taiwan in children aged 6-14 years.[4]

1. WHO World Health Report, 1998
2. Supplied by the WHO
3. Health 21 - The Health for All policy for the WHO European Region - 21 targets for the 21st Century (Submitted to WHO Regional committee, Forty-eighth session, Copenhagen, 14-18 September 1998
4. Chang MH, Chen CJ, Lai MS, et al. Universal hepatitis B vaccination in Taiwan and the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in Childre. N Engl J Med 1997;336:1855-9