Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine creator to make keynote speech at UK’s Global Investment Summit
The UK’s pharmaceutical industry is set to take top billing at the UK’s Global Investment Summit next week, with GlaxoSmithKline’s chief executive and one of the creator’s of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to deliver keynote speeches.
GSK chief Dame Emma Walmsley and Oxford University vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert will be alongside World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in delivering key speeches at the event.
The summit, which is being run by international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan and her department, is a part of the government’s drive to increase foreign direct investment post-Brexit.
Gilbert and Walmsley will likely bang the drum for the UK’s pharmaceuticals industry, after the UK pioneered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, in a bid to attract more foreign investment to the sector.
Green technology will be another key theme of the summit, with Trevelyan saying the summit will “showcase how the UK is using investment to cement itself as a science and tech superpower, and a pioneer of green technology ahead of Cop26”.
BlackRock chairman and chief executive Larry Fink, JP Morgan Chase & Co chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon and Barclays chief executive Jes Staley will also be speaking at the summit.