UK-based pharmaceutical conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and UK-based automotive company the McLaren Group signed a strategic agreement yesterday, set to run initially until 2016.
GSK is looking to harness McLaren’s expertise in analytics and data modelling, which it will chiefly use in its nutritionals unit, as well as in manufacturing, consumer healthcare and research & development. McLaren had struck a similar partnership with the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to handle large data needs in real time.
Andrew Witty, chief executive officer of GSK, said: "McLaren has an unparalleled reputation for innovation, built on rigorous analytics and fast decision-making. This partnership is another example of GSK looking outside its sector for inspiration and fresh perspectives on how we can achieve our strategic goals in an ever more challenging and fast-changing business environment."
Ron Dennis, executive chairman of McLaren Group, said: "This all-new collaboration between McLaren Group and GSK – McLaren’s first ever such association with a major pharmaceutical corporation – represents a ground-breaking strategic partnership that engages two great British companies at a variety of levels across a number of disciplines in a multi-faceted and ground-breaking way."
As part of the agreement, the two will also collaborate on a learning facility to be called the McLaren GSK Centre for Applied Performance, to be opened in 2013. The building will be built alongside the existing McLaren Technology Centre, in England.