AstraZeneca announces new Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has announced it is setting up its new global headquarters, just south of Cambridge.
The £330million research and development site will employ a skilled workforce of 2,000 people and will open by 2016. Research and Development will cease at Alderley Park in Cheshire and close its London headquarters. Many of these posts will move to Cambridge, but around 700 roles wills be lost. This new site will be AstraZeneca’s largest centre for cancer research. The new research campus will also look into developments in cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune disease research.
They are one of the biggest drugs company in the UK, second only to GlaxoSmithKline.
AstraZeneca announced the plans for their new Cambridge site in March – yet we are still awaiting confirmation of exact location. When this move was first announced it did not receive very positive press, unions said that moving so many jobs to Cambridge would be a blow to the north-west of England. The 4.5 hectares site will be near Addenbrooke’s Hospital. However, many people feel that the move will be extremely beneficial to the UK life sciences industry, especially minsiter of universities and science, David Willetts.
The company see the move as putting them at the heart of the world-renowned bioscience hub, which is home to the world’s best scientists, clinicians and research institutions.
source: bbc news item