AstraZeneca appoints architect for new Cambridge base

AstraZeneca has selected Herzog and de Meuron as the architect of its new global research and development centre and corporate headquarters in Cambridge.

The architectural design firm has been tasked with creating a site that centres around a core hub of laboratories to encourage collaborative working across the organisation, while also making it accessible to the wider scientific community through an open design and campus environment.

It will be located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will employ a highly-skilled workforce of approximately 2,000, with around 400 AstraZeneca employees – primarily scientists involved in research and development – moving to Cambridge during 2014.

AstraZeneca is spending 300 million pounds on the project and hopes to bolster its pipeline productivity.

Mene Pangalos, executive vice-president for innovative medicines and early development at AstraZeneca, said: "We want to create a site that supports our ambition of achieving scientific leadership, while blending into the fabric of the thriving local scientific community."

This comes after the company announced last week that it will be spending 120 million pounds to create a new manufacturing facility to produce the prostate cancer drug Zoladex in Macclesfield.