GSK to Close Stevenage Lab and Open New Science Hub in Cambridge

British drugmaker GSK has announced it will close its main research and development centre in Stevenage and open a new science hub in Cambridge. About 1,800 people currently work at the Stevenage site in Hertfordshire. GSK wants most of them to move to either the new Cambridge site or a nearby location called Ware by 2029. The company says the changes will help it save money and build better medicines.

The new Cambridge centre will be 300,000 square feet and will house more than 1,000 scientists. It is being built by a company called Prologis and will sit inside the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. That campus is one of the largest of its kind in all of Europe. GSK will spend £400 million on the move and upgrades over the next three years.

GSK's chief executive, Luke Miels, said the company is starting a three-year cost-savings programme. The goal is to cut annual costs by £1.9 billion. Most of those savings will go back into research and development to fund new medicines. Some savings will also protect profits during a difficult time ahead for the company.

That difficult time is connected to a key HIV medicine called dolutegravir. This drug has been very important for GSK, but its patent is expiring soon. When a patent expires, other companies can make cheaper copies of the same drug, which means GSK could lose a lot of money from that product. The company needs the savings to make up for that expected loss.

Tony Wood, GSK's chief scientific officer, said the Cambridge campus is a great place for scientists to work together and share ideas. He called the move a catalyst for faster and bolder medicines discovery. GSK believes being close to other top scientists and universities will help it find new treatments more quickly. Mr Wood said the location would speed up the science that matters most for GSK's next wave of medicines.

This is not the first round of changes at Stevenage. In February, GSK cut around 350 R&D jobs in the US and UK, and over 2,500 people had been working at Stevenage at that time. The company has been reorganising its global research division for several months. These latest changes are the biggest step yet in that ongoing process.