Yesterday AstraZeneca announced that its new UK-based global research and development centre and corporate headquarters will be located at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. By 2016, approximately 2,000 employees will be working at the site.

The £330 million investment in the Cambridge facility is part of AstraZeneca's plans to create strategic global R&D centres in the UK, US and Sweden.

Dr Mark Downs, chief executive of the Society of Biology, welcomed the announcement. He said: "Strategic centres, such as the one AstraZeneca has planned for Cambridge, will benefit the drug development pipeline, and we hope that more will be created in the coming years.

"Despite job losses announced earlier this year by AstraZeneca and others over previous years, the UK retains an extremely strong position in the bioscience sector. This announcement is a good example of the industry moving forward with new models which allow a greater flow of skilled people and joint working with academia. In parallel we all need to encourage retention of rare skills in drug development to ensure the sector can respond rapidly in the future to further investment opportunities."