NEW YORK (Reuters) -
The new chief executive of
GlaxoSmithKline Plc said on Wednesday therapeutic vaccines used
to treat cancer and other diseases could become a major product
line for the world's second-largest drugmaker.

Andrew Witty said therapeutic vaccines, which prod the
immune system to attack specific proteins linked to diseases,
are one of the company's most promising areas of research.

“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 illness rather than fight it.

Glaxo is conducting late-stage trials of a therapeutic
vaccine meant for cancer patients after their tumors have been
surgically removed, Witty said. The therapeutic vaccine is
meant to destroy any surviving cancer cells and prevent
recurrence of the disease.

Called MAGE-A3, the vaccine is being tested against lung
cancer and melanoma. It targets MAGE-3, a protein found in a
number of cancers but not in normal cells.

It is Glaxo's leading product among a class of vaccines
called Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutics (ACSIs),
designed to train the immune system to recognize and eliminate
cancer cells in a highly specific manner.

Witty spoke to journalists at a meeting in New York. Last
week he unveiled plans to make the London-based company a
broader business with lower costs.

Although Witty aims to expand Glaxo's line of vaccines,
medicines and consumer products, he said on Wednesday that he
has little interest in medical devices, which are a major
product line for diversified drugmakers such as Johnson &
Johnson and Abbott Laboratories Inc.

“You should not expect us to say we'll go buy products on a
far-away island. Devices seem like that to us,” Witty said. “I
look at other businesses that we're not involved in, like med
tech, and ask do we know how to buy such businesses. I'm not
sure we can answer 'yes.”'

But he said Glaxo might develop medical devices if they
were a necessary component of drug therapy.

Last week, Witty said another linchpin of future earnings
growth for Glaxo would be an aggressive program to sell generic
drugs in emerging markets, meaning those outside the United
States and Europe. Glaxo also aims to boost its line of
nonprescription consumer health-care products.

Although generic drugs and consumer products may have lower
profit margins than Glaxo's mainstay of branded prescription
drugs, Witty said they could still increase company profits.

“Percentages don't pay the rent, dollars pay the rent,” he
said, predicting that a higher volume of low-margin products
would drive the “overall quantum of profits.”

(Editing by Maureen Bavdek, Toni Reinhold)