he plans for AstraZeneca’s new headquarters and large R&D campus in Cambridge were unveiled in 2013, but its costs and timeframe have exceeded the initial estimate of 330 million pounds and an aimed completion date of 2016. AstraZeneca, which has a large portfolio of treatments for diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, said the centre would support research into specialised medicines and next-generation therapeutics, including gene-editing and cell therapies. “We will have advances that could come to the clinic in the next three, four years, that can lead to really effective new drugs in various aspects of treating cancer,” Dr Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president, Oncology Research & Development, told Reuters in an interview. “I’m very optimistic about the fact that we can make a big difference to this disease in the coming decade”.