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GSK to Spend £400 m on Cambridge R&D, Close Stevenage Hub

7/29/2026

35 7 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

GSK will invest £400 million to build a 300,000-sq-ft R&D centre on Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will close its Stevenage R&D hub, moving the 1,800 staff to Cambridge or Ware labs by 2029.
A three-year cost-saving programme aims for £1.9 billion savings and £2.4 billion cost to fund the relocation and double phase III trials this year.
Shares rose about 5-6% after the announcement, prompting GSK to reaffirm a £40 billion sales target for 2031.

History

Historical Context

Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham announced their merger in January 2000 and completed it on 27 December, creating GlaxoSmithKline. The new group had already cut 10,000 jobs in 1995 and closed the Beckenham R&D centre, shifting research to Stevenage. GSK’s £300 million headquarters opened in Brentford in 2002, illustrating a long-standing drive toward centralised UK labs.

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Story summary

GSK will invest £400 million to build a 300,000-sq-ft R&D centre on Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will close its Stevenage R&D hub, moving the 1,800 staff to Cambridge or Ware labs by 2029.
A three-year cost-saving programme aims for £1.9 billion savings and £2.4 billion cost to fund the relocation and double phase III trials this year.
Shares rose about 5-6% after the announcement, prompting GSK to reaffirm a £40 billion sales target for 2031.

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