AstraZeneca is building a new $514 million global R&D center and corporate headquarters on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. By 2016, the new site will house 2,000 employees.

The investment is part of AZ’s move to create strategic global R&D centers in the U.K., U.S. and Sweden to improve pipeline productivity and establish AZ as a global leader in biopharmaceutical innovation.

The site will bring together small molecule and biologics R&D activity, opening up opportunities to small and large molecule combinations. The Cambridge Biomedical Campus will be the new U.K. home for biologics research and protein engineering carried out by MedImmune, AZ’s biologics arm.

The site also will become the company’s largest center for oncology research, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic disease, respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune disease and central nervous system research. The facility also will hold preclinical capabilities including medicinal chemistry and high-throughput screening.

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is home to research, academic and healthcare organizations including the University of Cambridge school of Clinical Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and the Cancer Research U.K. Cambridge Institute.