British pharmaceutical giant GSK plans to cut up to 720 mainly senior jobs from its vaccine division in Belgium and not renew 215 temporary contracts, it said Wednesday.

The global company is the biggest private employer in Belgium's French-speaking region, with 9,000 staff in three production plants and its vaccine operations centre. "A transformation plan was therefore presented to the works council today," GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said, in a statement.

"Several departments ... will be affected by this transformation project, including R&D, manufacturing and quality control, as well as global support functions." GSK Vaccines managing director Patrick Florent said that he understood the emotion that such a large round of lay off could cause the workforce.

But he said that discussion would begin immediately with staff representatives on the impact of the plan, and vowed GSK would retain a "strategic" commitment to Belgium.