18 June 2013 - Biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca revealed on Tuesday that its new corporate headquarters and global R&D centre will be located in the UK at Cambridge.

The company said it will bring its small molecule and MedImmune's biologics research and development together at a GBP330m purpose-built facility in the south of the city on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. MedImmune is AstraZeneca's biologics arm, which carries out biologics research and protein engineering and already employs around 500 people at Granta Park, in the south east of Cambridge. The new site is expected to house a highly-skilled workforce of approximately 2,000 by 2016.

According to AstraZeneca, the move will create strategic global R&D centres in the UK, US and Sweden, improving pipeline productivity and to establishing the company as a global leader in biopharmaceutical innovation. The new Cambridge site will be the company's largest centre for oncology research and will host scientists focused on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases and conditions of the central nervous system. Medicinal chemistry and high-throughput screening will be performed at the Cambridge facility, which will also accommodate a number of AstraZeneca's pre-clinical research capabilities