Charles River and the Francis Crick Institute Combine Expertise in Antibody-Drug Conjugate Development

WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) and The Francis Crick Institute (Crick) today announced a new collaboration around Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) drug discovery and development, leveraging combined strengths to accelerate the development and delivery of next-generation targeted therapies.

This agreement leverages an integrated approach to streamline discovery and characterization—bringing promising ADC candidates to the clinic faster and more efficiently. This end-to-end approach—spanning antibody discovery, conjugation, in vitro profiling, and preclinical studies—will be fully integrated and managed jointly by Charles River and the Crick to minimize timelines and maximize efficiency.

“This integrated ADC development agreement represents a powerful synergy between cutting-edge antibody discovery and rigorous safety profiling,” said Justin Bryans, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Charles River. “Together, we’re enabling the development of smarter, safer therapeutics that are more likely to succeed in the clinic—ultimately supporting the mission of delivering life-changing therapies to patients.”

This collaboration will feature antibody generation leveraging phage display libraries, ensuring high-affinity, target-specific antibodies as the foundation for ADC development. It will also utilize Charles River’s advanced Retrogenix™ platform, an in vitro profiling technology designed to evaluate off-target interactions and enhance safety and therapeutic index early in the development process.

David Allen, Director of Translation at the Crick, added, “This collaboration marks a powerful convergence of innovation and execution. Working together will allow us to translate our research discoveries into new treatments at a scale and speed that simply wouldn’t be possible alone.”

About Charles River
Charles River provides essential products and services to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, government agencies and leading academic institutions around the globe accelerate their research and drug development efforts. Our dedicated employees are focused on providing clients with exactly what they need to improve and expedite the discovery, early-stage development and safe manufacture of new therapies for the patients who need them. To learn more about our unique portfolio and breadth of services, visit www.criver.com.

About The Francis Crick Institute
The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute with the mission of understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work helps improve our understanding of why disease develops which promotes discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King's College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe. For more information, please visit http://crick.ac.uk/.