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In a Lecture at Riyadh Chamber, Al-Ashqar Calls for Saudi Endowment Sector to Study WELLCOME Experience After a hundred years of Success, British "WELLCOME" Endowment Bestowed the world the Highly-Reputed Medicaments, Panadol and Augmentin

Thursday 02 March 2017

​Riyadh Chamber, represented by the Endowment Committee, organized a lecture about the British "WELLCOME" endowment experience, which has been named after its founder Henry Wellcome. The lecture, moderated by Mr. Suleiman Al-Zekri, Endowment Committee's member, began with a speech by Mr. Abdullah Al-Ajlan, Chairman of Endowment Committee and Riyadh Chamber's Board member. Dr. Osama Al-Ashqar, associate professor at Umm Al-Qura University, called the Islamic endowment sector in the Kingdom to benefit from the "WELLCOME" endowment experience, which is characterized by professional and institutional features, with an annual expenditure volume of about a billion Pounds sterling. Dr. Al-Ashqar added that "WELLCOME" endowment is the third largest charitable one in the world, and has important global contributions in pharmaceutical inventions such as the Panadol and the antibiotic Augmentin. In addition, WELLCOME endowment has established large scientific institutions like the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, and the Institute of Cancer Research. The lecturer advised the Saudi endowment sector and the General Authority of Endowment to benefit from the British experience and called for diversifying endowment investments through sharia-approved channels.