Glaxo says therapeutic vaccines hold big promise

NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - The new chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday that therapeutic vaccines used to treat cancer and other diseases could play a big future role for the world's second-largest drugmaker.

Andrew Witty said one of the London-based company's most promising new areas of drug research is therapeutic vaccines -- products that prod the immune system to attack specific proteins that have been linked to given diseases, including tumor cells.

"If it fulfills its promise, it will probably be a whole new business," Witty said, referring to such vaccines as "hybrids" between drugs and vaccines.

Vaccines traditionally have been used to prevent infection with disease-causing pathogens, rather than to fight diseases that have already surfaced.

Glaxo is now conducting late-stage trials of a therapeutic vaccine that would be given to cancer patients after their tumors are surgically removed, he said. By zeroing in on specific proteins linked to the cancer, it is meant to destroy surviving cancer cells and thereby prevent recurrence of the disease. (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson)