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Sir Jon Symonds joins Pharmacology as a Visiting Fellow

Department

The Department of Pharmacology is delighted to announce the appointment of Sir Jonathan Symonds CBE, Chair of the Board of GlaxoSmithKline, as a Visiting Fellow. Jon has been Chairman of the Board at GSK since September 2019.

Sir Jonathan Symonds CBE

Announcing the appointment, the Head of the Department of Pharmacology, Professor Fran Platt, said, “Jon is a perfect fit with our aspirations as a department, to form meaningful partnerships with industry to build on our fundamental research and to maximise translation of our discoveries.”

Jon has extensive international financial, life sciences and governance experience. In July 2021, Jon co-chaired with Professor Sir John Bell the preparation of the UK Life Science Vision, which sets out a strategy for UK life sciences in the post-Covid world and seeks to capitalise on many of the UK’s scientific successes through the pandemic.

In Life Sciences, Jon was Chief Financial Officer of Novartis AG from September 2009 to January 2014 and Chief Financial Officer of AstraZeneca plc from October 1997 and July 2007, a period which included the negotiation and completion of the merger with Astra. As a CFO Jon chaired the 100 Group of Finance Directors, co-chaired the HMRC business tax committee and co-founded the Centre for Business Taxation at the Said Business School.  He is also a former Chair of Genomics England.

We very much look forward to welcoming Jon to the Department in due course.

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