The therapeutic research areas of oncology and immunology are rapidly growing. Discovery research in these areas is complex and requires specialized capabilities. Pharma and biopharma companies traditionally keep discovery work in-house, but as preclinical CROs offer experience and comprehensive portfolios of testing services, they’re increasingly outsourcing aspects of discovery.
 
Charles River Laboratories recently acquired KWS BioTest, a CRO specializing in in vitro and in vivo discovery testing services for immuno-oncology, inflammatory, and infectious diseases, for approximately $20 million. The acquisition expands Charles River’s discovery services with additional tools in this field.
 
Birgit Girshick, corporate senior vice president, Global Discovery Services, at Charles River, provides some insight into the challenges and opportunities in early discovery and development activities in the preclinical outsourcing space. –KB
 
 
Contract Pharma: What new services have you gained with the acquisition?
 
Birgit Girshick: The acquisition of KWS BioTest expands our existing capabilities in in vitro and in vivo discovery testing services for immuno-oncology and inflammatory and infectious diseases, along with complementary offerings in the active therapeutic research areas of oncology and immunology.
 
CP: What pharma/biopharma drug development trends are you seeing and where do you think the biggest opportunities lie?
 
BG: In recent years, we’ve seen pharma and biotech begin to outsource the early discovery piece of their drug development. Historically, these companies did their discovery work in house, but now more and more pharma and biotech organizations are seeing the benefit of outsourcing. Contract research organization’s (CROs) are able to develop deep scientific benches of experienced industry veterans who are adept at early discovery. This is combined with the ease of transitioning a compound from early discovery through safety assessment and to IND submission with one service provider.
 
This outsourcing allows pharma and biotech to reallocate those resources to other parts of the drug development process. As this becomes more common, there is a huge opportunity to ensure, as a CRO, that you are developing a robust portfolio of early discovery services to meet the needs of these clients.
 
CP: What are the biggest industry challenges you are seeing? 
 
BG: The biggest challenges in drug development are time and cost. Companies are under increasing pressure to deliver novel therapies faster and cheaper. From the CRO perspective, we are constantly evaluating our client’s journey and developing strategies to increase our speed, responsiveness and flexibility.
 
In terms of growth, we want our clients to feel secure that as we grow, we will only get faster. It’s extremely important to us, at an organizational level, that clients receive personalized, tailored attention on a global scale.
 
CP: What specialized capabilities are driving preclinical outsourcing?
 
BG: As an early-stage drug discovery and development CRO, we’re able to develop teams of experts focused in highly specific areas. Charles River has more than 1,000 Ph.D.s across 70 facilities in 16 countries. From high-throughput screening to CRISPR gene-editing to biosimilar development, and now to immunology.
 
This deep bench and broad reach provides clients a resource to complete pieces of the drug discovery process where they may not be able to make the same level of investment.
 
CP: Are there any other services areas Charles River is looking to add or expand capabilities?
 
BG: Our growth plan has always been directly tied to the needs of our clients. We’ve acquired more than 35 companies over the past 15 years, including seven in the past three years alone. This type of aggressive, but highly strategic growth, provides us the opportunity to be more relevant to our customers and consistently expand our portfolio to meet their needs.