UNION leaders have reacted with disgust to yesterday's announcement that a drug multi-national which is about to shed 400 jobs in the North-East has made pre-tax profits of £2.5bn.

The jump in profits at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) comes only a month after the group, which employs 1,500 staff at its Barnard Castle plant, announced it was to cut more than a quarter of its workforce at the County Durham site.

GSK can now boast a profits increase of almost ten per cent for the second quarter, which has mainly been down to the huge success of the asthma drug Advair in the US.

Union leaders in the region are outraged. Roger Lyons, general secretary of the Manufacturing Science and Finance union, said: "The scale of these profits is disgusting.

"We forewarned job cuts at the start of the year when the merger was announced, and now it seems that GSK are prepared to cut jobs to increase profits.

"This will be sickening for the workers at Barnard Castle who face an uncertain future. They now have to face seeing the disgusting profits that GSK are enjoying.

"We are calling on the company to hold any job cuts and invest its profits in its workforce."

GSK blame the proposed job cuts on the huge merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, from which the pharmaceutical company expects to save £1.6bn by 2003.

The firm has denied accusations that the proposed cuts are designed purely to increase profits.

A spokesman for GSK said: "We deeply regret the proposed job cuts at Barnard Castle, and we will do everything we can to offer support those who face redundancy.

"We have not proposed cuts to increase profits."

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