McLaren will help develop new efficient planning processes, data modelling tools and real time monitoring and forecasting among a range of other services.

GSK, the laboratory service provider to the Olympic Games, believes that McLaren's technological acumen will deliver a real competitive advantage to their work.

McLaren will work on GSK's manufacturing, research and development, and consumer healthcare businesses, which cover brands including Lucozade, Panadol and Sensodyne.

GSK chief executive Andrew Witty said: "I am delighted to announce this partnership with McLaren, which brings together two British companies whose continued success hinges on the ability to innovate and rapidly respond to change and competitor activity.

"McLaren has an unparalleled reputation for innovation, built on rigorous analytics and fast decision-making.

"This partnership is another example of GSK looking outside its sector for inspiration and fresh perspectives on how we can achieve our strategic goals in an ever more challenging and fast-changing business environment."

As part of the agreement, a state of the art learning facility will be built, called the McLaren GSK Centre for Applied Performance at Woking, Surrey, by the McLaren Technology Centre.

It will be for employees of both organisations to collaborate, share ideas and innovate together, and will open in 2013.

McLaren executive chairman Ron Dennis said: "This all-new collaboration between McLaren Group and GSK - McLaren's first ever such association with a major pharmaceutical corporation - represents a groundbreaking strategic partnership that engages two great British companies at a variety of levels across a number of disciplines in a multi-faceted and ground-breaking way.

"This new partnership is a pioneering and game-changing initiative that will play to the UK's strengths as a globally competitive industrial powerhouse for science, engineering, technology and R&D.

"In today's challenging economic conditions, we firmly believe that innovative associations such as ours will play an increasingly significant role in ensuring that the UK remains globally competitive in the field of scientific innovation."

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