"We anticipate phenomenal growth in cancer vaccines," Bruce Carlson, the Kalorama Information editor who worked on the report, told United Press International.

Merck's cervical-cancer vaccine Gardasil is paving the way for this sector. In addition to Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, the report projects several other vaccines targeted at different cancers will become significant players.

"One of the bigger ones is Intracel's OncoVAX," Carlson said. "This will be alone in the colon cancer vaccine market," he added, noting that it will generate approximately $1.2 billion by 2012.

Prostate cancer will also be a significant opportunity. Cell Genesys' Gvax and Dendreon's Provenge will lead this area, which is anticipated to be worth $3.2 billion by 2012.

Another top runner is Merck KGaA's lung-cancer vaccine Stimuvax, which is expected to generate $699 million in sales by 2012, Carlson said.

Adult vaccines will rise from $3.7 billion (their total worth in 2005) to $7.5 billion in 2012. The report projects the combined global adult and pediatric vaccine markets will total $15 billion by 2012.

"The fastest growing segment in the adult vaccines area is influenza vaccines," Carlson said. "Hepatitis vaccines, with a projected growth rate of 8-9 percent, are the second fastest growing," he added.

Flu vaccines, which are forecasted to grow by 13.2 percent, will top $4 billion by 2012. The leading flu-vaccine manufacturers include Sanofi and Novartis.

Hepatitis vaccines are projected to reach $1.5 billion by 2012. The top-selling hepatitis B vaccine currently is GSK's Engerix-B.

Decision Resources analysts told UPI their analysis indicates influenza, HIV and cancer will be the biggest growth areas in the vaccine market.

"When you're talking about the overall vaccine market, I think the big interest is in influenza vaccines, HIV vaccines and cancer vaccines," said Aaron Woolsey, an analyst with Decision Resources.

The biggest growth in the flu-vaccine market will come in the area of vaccines for pandemics that could be caused by the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

"With avian flu, the interest in flu vaccine has picked up," Woolsey said.

A number of companies are developing vaccines against the H5N1 strain, including GSK, Sanofi, Novartis and Baxter.

For the regular annual flu vaccine, some companies are working on developing a multivalent vaccine that might protect individuals against five or six variants of flu strains rather than the three offered by current vaccines, Woolsey said. But the main thrust right now is in developing vaccines to protect against a flu pandemic.

Although several pharmaceutical and biotech companies are developing HIV vaccines, Sylvia Eash, also with Decision Resources, said it was unlikely any would pan out in the foreseeable future.

"The experts we talk to say it's a pie in the sky idea and we're not going to see an effective vaccine anytime in the near future," Eash said. A viable vaccine could be more than 15 years away, she added.

A major problem inhibiting development of an effective vaccine is that it's not well understood how the immune system controls HIV infection, if at all.

"That lack of understanding is pretty critical to creating a successful vaccine," Eash said.

In the hepatitis arena, Woolsey said he did not see any major players in development, but Dynavax's hepatitis B vaccine could prove interesting.

This vaccine, which is still in clinical development, is intended to reduce the number of shots required from three to two. But it's too early to project how much revenue that would generate, Woolsey said.

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