What does AstraZeneca's £300m pledge for UK mean for Cambridge?

Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has said it will invest £300m into UK drugs development in what the prime minister has described as a "major vote of confidence" in the country. It comes seven months after the company "paused" investment in Cambridge, so what does it mean for the city, and what prompted the U-turn? AstraZeneca is Britain's largest pharmaceutical company and is often cited as the biggest company of any sort in the UK, valued at more than £210bn. Its global headquarters are in Cambridge - the largest life sciences cluster in Europe - where it employs more than 4,000 people directly (about half of whom are in the £1.1bn DISC building on the city's biomedical campus) and supports more than 6,000 other jobs. The company said it chose Cambridge so it could be close to the city's "world-leading academic research institutions, renowned hospitals and leading-edge biotech companies". Aside from employment, which generates money for the local economy, AstraZeneca's presence in the city also has an impact on patients. It is now involved in around 200 science-led partnerships across the Cambridge area. Its partnership with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (CUH), which in