We know that to agree is to align your values, ideas, and beliefs with another; but Aspen UK believes that to disagree, to refuse, to counter another, can help enlarge perspectives, energise progress, and push ideas forward.
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Big Pharma: lessons from the pandemic
Professor Louise Kenny – Head of the Pandemic Institute, Liverpool
Ben Osborn – Managing Director of Pfizer UK
Dr Danny Sriskandarajah – CEO of Oxfam Great Britain
The past two years have been seminal for Big Pharma. When the world desperately needed Covid-19 vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry developed, produced, and provided them in record time.
For years campaigners have highlighted the moral ambiguity of profit-making from the discovery, development, and marketing of life-saving drugs. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, drug companies have been able to execute incredible expedited innovation to meet global needs and have collaborated in an unprecedented fashion with research organisations and governments to do so.
Has the industry changed for the better, and will these changes stick? Could the industry’s solutions-based model be applied elsewhere? How quickly could we solve the climate crisis or income inequality using this model of public-private partnership, streamlined approval processes, and industry agility?