News of AstraZeneca’s recent Covid-19 partnership agreement with the University of Oxford echoed around the world. The deal would see the Cambridge-based pharmaceutical giant producing billions of doses of a vaccine currently being trialled at The Jenner Institute in Oxford, at no profit, and effectively bring an end to the global crisis. Meanwhile in Milton Keynes the UK ‘mega lab’, the Lighthouse Laboratory, recently completed its 500,000th Coronavirus test. This crisis has shown how effectively the UK life sciences industry collaborates with its response to the global pandemic the fastest in the world. As marketing opportunities for the UK and the Oxford-Cambridge Arc go, they don’t come much bigger. With epidemiology leading the news each day, we ask how business and political leaders in Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes should be building on the public’s new awareness of the importance of scientific research to both our health and the UK economy? AstraZeneca’s Andy Williams, Vice President for Cambridge Strategy and Operations; MD of Advanced Oxford, Sarah Haywood Price, and Chloe French, Associate Planner in Bidwells’ Milton Keynes team, discuss: 1. What can local authorities do to work better with science and tech companies? 2. How can we best engage with communities sometimes wary of inward investment? 3. How might innovation districts play their part in creating diverse and vibrant city centres?
Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/