300th Anniversary of UK’s Largest Pharmaceutical Company
Watch our video with exclusive access to never seen before archive footage
The UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), marks its 300th birthday.
In 1715, Silvanus Bevan from Swansea established the Plough Court pharmacy in London, the family company that grew into Allen and Hanburys which, in turn, become part of GlaxoWellcome. GlaxoWellcome merged with SmithKline Beecham on 1 January 2001 to become GlaxoSmithKline.
From Silvanus and a couple of assistants in the back of the apothecary shop, GSK has grown to employ 100,000 people worldwide, some 15,000 of them working in the UK across six research and development centres, nine manufacturing sites and five offices - including GSK’s global headquarters in London.
GSK’s heritage has been shaped by hundreds of scientists and doctors, including five Nobel Laureates[iv], with links to a sixth who used his Nobel Prize winnings to set up a vaccines facility that is now operated by GSK.
Watch our video where GSK’s Heritage Archivist, Jill Moretto, grants us exclusive access to never seen before contents from the archive to see how the humble apothecary Plough Court has evolved into the UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, GSK, and we also hear from Graham Simpson, the seven times great nephew of the founder.
Notes to editors
Silvanus Bevan travelled to London from Swansea in 1708 to train as an apprentice apothecary, a forerunner to today’s pharmacists. On completing his training in 1715, he set up Plough Court Pharmacy, just off Lombard Street in London. Ten years later his brother joined the growing business. People visiting London soon became familiar with the Bevans’ Galenic[v] products, based on plants and minerals. By the late 1720’s, the brothers were exporting products to British colonies around the world.
Over the years the companies that came together to form GSK have been woven into the health of the UK, and much of the world. They providing most of the antibiotics used during the Second World War[vi]; they discovered vaccines and life changing medicines for conditions such as asthma, stomach ulcers and HIV; and just this year another merger has created the world’s biggest over-the-counter consumer healthcare company.
This video was commissioned by GSK in the UK to increase awareness of a programme run by the company to provide school students with work experience on GSK sites during their spring half term week.
The cost of the video was fully funded by GSK. UK/COM/0141/15a Date of Preparation: November 2015
[iii] The largest pharmaceutical company by value headquartered in the UK.
[iv] The six Nobel Laureates who worked in companies that have become part of GSK are:
• Emil von Behring (1901) - vaccination against diphtheria
• Sir Henry Dale (1936) - showing the role of acetylcholine in neural transmission
• Sir John Vane (1982) - for work on understanding the mechanism of aspirin on prostaglandins
• Dr George Hitchings (1988); Dr Gertrude Elion (1988); Sir James Black (1988) - jointly for their discoveries of important principles for drug selection that later led to the discovery of a host of new medicines
[v] Galenics are named after the ancient Greek medicine man called Galen, a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher who lived in the second century AD.
[vi] Glaxo produced over 80 per cent of all penicillin doses in the UK field and base hospitals during WWII.
Негізгі бет 300th Anniversary of UK’s Largest Pharmaceutical Company
Пікірлер