Barrow and Furness MP Simon Fell has written to a leading local pharmaceutical company asking if Ulverston can play a part in helping with the development of a Coronavirus vaccine.
In the letter to GlaxoSmithKline, Mr Fell thanks the company for its efforts towards developing a vaccine for COVID-19 and asks for the company to use the site in Ulverston and skilled local workforce in this initiative.
Speaking from Ulverston, Simon Fell said: “I have no doubt that GSK will play a significant part in the country’s research into, and subsequent development of a vaccine.
With that in mind, I have written to ask the company if their Ulverston site can be used for some of this work. The company owes a debt to our local community and it would be welcome news if this current crisis could provide an opportunity for the business to deliver on some of the promises which were made only years ago.
The scale of opportunity at the Ulverston site is vast, and I very much hope that GSK will take this opportunity to use this important asset to its best.”
The Government is providing £45 million for two world-leading projects working to find a vaccine for coronavirus. The projects, at Oxford University and Imperial College, will receive funding to further work on a vaccine, with the first human trials already underway. This is in addition to the £250 million it’s putting into the international effort to find a vaccine.
A new taskforce is also being launched to accelerate the development of a vaccine for coronavirus. The taskforce will coordinate the efforts of government, academia and industry towards a single goal: to accelerate the development of a vaccine for coronavirus as fast as possible.
It will back Britain’s most promising research, positioning the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine development and manufacturing.
