GSK - Formula1
GSK has its fingers in other sports, having partnered the McLaren Group in Formula 1 for a number of years. This was mostly through its consumer health division and such brands as Lucozade (now owned by Japanese conglomerate Suntory), but such sponsorship made a change from the 30 years or so of tobacco adverts pasted on the cars.
But as well as advertising, GSK has a business partnership with McLaren through its Human Performance Laboratory aimed to further understand how strength, stamina, cognition, hydration, metabolism and recovery affect performance of athletes, including McLaren’s driver Jenson Button.
Meanwhile the partnership works both ways, with McLaren staff identifying bottlenecks in the manufacturing of GSK’s Breo Ellipta asthma inhalers at a plant in Ware, Hertfordshire. For more information of how McLaren pushed production up by 10,000 per day, click here.