Millions of pounds in extra income from the swine flu outbreak will not stop a swathe of job losses at a drugs company.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is pushing ahead with plans to slash 10% of its workforce, including hundreds of jobs in Worthing and Crawley, despite announcing yesterday(TUE) that it was shipping another 149 million doses of its vaccine as governments step up their fight against the pandemic.

The firm has received 22 government orders since August and demand is so great it is outsourcing production to third parties.

But GSK said there are no plans to halt the closure of its Manor Royal factory in Crawley, which will be shut within 18 months with the loss of 493 jobs.

Nor will it lift the axe on the 250 workers set for the chop at its site in Worthing, being culled as part of a cost-cutting plan to trim 10,000 jobs from its global workforce of 100,000.

A spokeswoman for GSK said this is because neither site is involved in the production of the swine flu vaccine, which is manufactured in the German city of Dresden.

The spokeswoman added: “There are probably no circumstances where we would revise these decisions.”