AstraZeneca Selects Cambridge, UK for New Global R&D Center and Corporate HQ

AstraZeneca has announced that Cambridge, United Kingdom will be the location for the company's new UK-based global R&D center and corporate headquarters. The new £330 million ($516 million) facility in Cambridge will bring together AstraZeneca’s small-molecule and biologics R&D activity.

The purpose-built facility, which will be located in the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, is part of the company’s previously announced plan to create strategic global R&D centers in the UK, US, and Sweden. By 2016, the new site will house a workforce of approximately 2000. The site will be the new UK home for biologics research and protein engineering carried out by MedImmune, AstraZeneca’s biologics arm. MedImmune already employs approximately 500 people at Granta Park, to the southeast of Cambridge.

The new facility will also become the company’s largest center for oncology research and will also focus on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, respiratory, inflammation, and autoimmune diseases as well as conditions of the central nervous system. Work carried out in Cambridge will include medicinal chemistry and high-throughput screening, and the facility will accommodate a number of AstraZeneca’s preclinical research capabilities. Other global functions will join the research and development teams at the new facility, and Cambridge will become AstraZeneca’s corporate headquarters.

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus site is home to research, academic, and healthcare organizations, including the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the Wellcome Trust–MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. The AstraZeneca facility will occupy approximately 11 acres of the 70-acre campus.

“Cambridge competes on the global stage as a respected innovation hub for life sciences, and our choice of site puts us at the heart of this important ecosystem, providing valuable collaboration opportunities,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, in a press statement.