Prince Charles is praising Cambridge as a center of scientific collaboration as AstraZeneca opened an over 1-billion-dollar (CDN) research center there.

The pharmaceutical company hopes the facility will build on work in developing one of the first COVID-19 vaccines.

The complex near the University of Cambridge will house more than 2-thousand research scientists and will resemble a hub similar to what California’s Silicon Valley is for the tech industry.

While AstraZeneca’s vaccine is widely used across the world —including Canada — the company plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve it for use in the United States.