AstraZeneca marked a significant milestone Tuesday when its new state-of-the-art R&D centre and global headquarters topped out. The company, including its biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, already has 2,000 employees actively engaged in the city’s vibrant scientific, academic, clinical and business community. Occupation of the site will begin in stages in 2018.

The topping out represents the completion of the new building’s concrete frame, as the focus of construction work turns to installing the roof, external glass cladding and starting the internal fit-out.

The building was co-designed by the company’s scientists and world-leading architects Herzog & de Meuron with the open architecture reflecting AstraZeneca’s collaborative approach to research. Open laboratories and transparent glass walls will enable new ways of working across disciplines and with external partners, whilst a central courtyard, open to the public, will put science on full display.

The new strategic R&D site will become AstraZeneca’s largest centre globally for oncology research, as well as housing scientists focused on respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The proximity and high concentration of leading scientific organisations at the CBC, across Cambridge and the region creates ideal conditions for sharing knowledge, skills and expertise — and ultimately for pushing the boundaries of science.

The new R&D site will house a joint research centre with the Medical Research Council, where partnering scientists will work side by side with AstraZeneca’s high throughput screening group.

AstraZeneca’s drug discovery scientists are working with Microsoft to use a cloud-based simulation that brings alive the millions of potential changes that make cancer cells multiply uncontrollably to better understand the disease.

Similarly, scientists from MedImmune and Cancer Research UK are working together to discover and develop novel biologics to treat cancer, including collaborating on a project looking at the best drug combinations to treat pancreatic cancer.

A novel agreement is in place that will give researchers from the University of Cambridge access to key compounds from the AstraZeneca drug pipeline.