GSK launches Olympics drug test adverts
pharmafile | July 16, 2012 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | GSK, London 2012, Olympics, doping
GlaxoSmithKline has launched a UK advertising campaign to celebrate the role anti-doping science will play in keeping the Games as a drug free as possible.
The company is the official provider of laboratory services for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which begin on 27 July.
The company’s site in Harlow is the central anti-doping laboratory, provided by GSK in conjunction with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and King’s College London.
The advertising campaign has been launched today to coincide with the lab becoming operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. More tests will be carried out at the London 2012 lab than at any other Games, with every medallist and up to 50% of all competing athletes being tested.
The adverts features British Olympians and Paralympians including Phillips Idowu, Beth Tweddle, David Weir, Graham Edmunds and Marlon Devonish, and will celebrate the ambition that drives athletes to perform and win drug-free. The campaign will appear on television and outdoor ad space across the UK, including the UK’s largest London 2012 outdoor sign, which covers GSK’s Brentford headquarters.
Phil Thompson, senior vice president, Global Communications at GlaxoSmithKline, said: “Our contribution to the London 2012 Games, through our partnership with LOCOG and King’s, is to help ensure that every medal winner can celebrate their athletic achievement in the knowledge they have won through a fair competition. Our advertising campaign aims to showcase the hard work, determination and natural ability that is central to each athlete’s performance.”
Marlon Devonish, Olympic gold medallist and one of the athletes featured in the campaign, said: “Winning an Olympic medal is the best feeling in the world and as an athlete it’s so important to know that anyone who stands on the podium has got there through their own hard work and dedication, not by doping.”
The lab will process up to 6,250 samples during the Games – more than any previous Olympiad. The anti-doping workforce at the Games will include over 1,000 people working around the clock.
More anti-doping stats
- Up to 400 samples will be tested every day
- The shortest test turnaround will be 24 hours (some tests will take longer)
- A team of more than 150 anti-doping scientists from around the world will carry out the testing during Games-time, led by Professor David Cowan from the Drug Control Centre at King’s College London
- Over 240 prohibited substances will be tested for.
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