CRO

Charles River signs up to help Moderna with mRNA pipeline

On the heels of an acquisition spree that saw it lay out more than $1 billion for 5 companies, Charles River Laboratories is signing on with Moderna to help the firm scale up its preclinical mRNA development efforts.

Through the deal, Charles River will help Cambridge, MA’s Moderna usher a variety of candidates--from both internal and external efforts--through IND-enabling studies with an eye on clinical work. The deal will “help enable the scale, efficiency and speed needed to support the full breadth of discovery programs underway and to continue advancing our development candidates,” Moderna’s CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement.

Specifically, Bancel added, the pact enables Moderna to speed up its GLP toxicology work, an “instrumental” factor for the biotech in advancing candidates. Charles River also has knowledge of Moderna’s platform, Bancel added, and the CRO is nearby in Wilmington, MA.

Moderna has 10 programs underway through both internal and external efforts, with its pipeline representing varying applications of the messenger RNA platform in different therapeutic areas.

For Charles River, the deal follows the April closing of its $585 million WIL Research purchase. In that buy, the CRO brought on new manufacturing capabilities and expanded its global footprint. It wasn’t Charles River’s only move to bulk up, though, as the CRO has also spent $36 million to buy Oncotest, $212 million to buy Celsis, $179 million to buy Argenta and BioFocus and $52 million for ChanTest over the last two years.

- here’s the release