GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to combine its cancer research and development units into a single organisation.

The move brings together scientists working in small drug research units and their counterparts in specialised drug development, who work at getting products through clinical trials and on to the market and is the latest attempt by Andrew Witty, the new chief executive, to shake up the world’s second-biggest drug company.

Mr Witty, who took over in May, has introduced a number of changes to the group’s research and development units, including opening its drug research to external scrutiny and asking scientists to pitch their ideas to a Dragons’ Den-style board with a £500 million budget.

Mr Witty’s latest change introduces a “bench to bed” approach in the oncology unit in an attempt to get urgent cancer drugs to the market quicker, a process that can take ten years. A spokesman said: “The new unit is almost like Oncology plc – a company within a company. By integrating the bench and bed stages the drug development time can be speeded up.”

GSK’s drug discovery units are part of the oncology Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (CEDD). The company set up CEDD after the merger of GlaxoWellcome and SmithKline Beecham in 2001 as semi-autonomous research centres focused on specific therapeutic areas.

Initially hailed as a success, some industry analysts have questioned their productivity rates as GSK struggles to get new drugs ready for the market.

Cancer drugs, along with vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, make up the majority of products in GSK’s five-year pipeline, and Paolo Paoletti, senior vice-president for oncology for GSK, who will lead the new drug unit, said the group aims to have ten cancer treatments on the market by 2009-10.

The company has 8,000 patients enrolled in clinical trials to evaluate a range of new cancer treatments.

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