Charles River (CRL) Forges Collaboration With Wheeler Bio
Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. CRL recently announced a strategic partnership with Wheeler Bio, an antibody CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) focused on the pre-clinical and early clinical supply of recombinant proteins, providing clients with access to Wheeler’s Portable CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls) platform. The new alliance provides early-stage biotechnology companies with a unique solution to rapidly transition from pre-clinical activities to first-in-human clinical trials.
The recent development will significantly boost Charles River’s Discovery and Safety Assessment (“DSA”) segment.
More on Wheeler Bio
A pioneer in biomanufacturing, Wheeler Bio was founded by a team of industry experts and strategic investors who believe that a different CDMO model is needed to help innovators reach their clinical milestones faster. The company’s technology platform, Portable CMC, simplifies the path between drug discovery and clinical manufacturing by providing a new bridge for translating discoveries to first-in-human trials. Innovators benefit from increased momentum during technology transfer, shorter timelines, reduced risk and lower costs.
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Wheeler Bio operates the Portable CMC platform in its state-of-the-art process development labs in Oklahoma City, OK, which also houses a CGMP facility of the future with on-site Charles River RightSource quality control testing labs. Moreover, CRL provides startup biotechs with access to a high-quality, agile, affordable path to clinical supply with thoughtfully designed, modular work packages featuring Leap-in Transposase for pool-based workflow parallelization, standard analytics and discrete CMC milestones that align with innovators’ fundraising milestones.
Strategic Benefits of the Collaboration
The partnership will combine Charles River’s industry-leading experience in antibody discovery services, safety and analytics with Wheeler’s Portable CMC platform to accelerate therapeutic discovery to IND submission timelines. This umbrella offering efficiently connects the preclinical, clinical manufacturing and release testing journeys, significantly reducing the complexity of managing multiple vendor relationships.
Integrating CMC development early in discovery enables therapeutic developers to collaborate with experts across organizations to utilize phase-appropriate manufacturing and analytics. The services and expertise come together to provide a single concept-to-commercial offering.
Industry Prospects
Per a Research report, the global drug discovery market was valued at $55.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to witness a CAGR of 9.2% by 2032.
Other Developments in the DSA Segment
In December 2023, CRL announced an agreement with CELLphenomics, a service-based biotechnology company that is using 3D hydrogel technology to advance the understanding of the tumor microenvironment and predict therapeutic efficacy. The partnership will provide Charles River’s clients with access to CELLphenomics’ proprietary 3D tumor model platform, PD3D. It also expands CRL’s 3D in vitro testing services to further optimize oncological approaches for its clients.
Further, the company acquired an additional 41% equity stake in Noveprim Group (“Noveprim”), a leading provider of nonhuman primates used for biomedical, pharmaceutical and toxicological research purposes. Noveprim has been a long-time supplier to Charles River, and the company made its first equity investment in 2022, acquiring a 49% stake.
Price Performance
Over the past six months, Charles River shares increased 24.7% compared with the industry’s rise of 12.3%.
Zacks Rank and Key Picks
Charles River carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Cardinal Health CAH, Insulet PODD and DaVita DVA. Cardinal Health and DaVita each sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while Insulet carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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CAH’s earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, delivering an average surprise of 15.6%. In the last reported quarter, it posted an earnings surprise of 16.7%.
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Estimates for DaVita’s 2024 earnings per share have advanced from $8.46 to $8.97 in the past 30 days. Shares of the company have risen 7.4% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 2.9%.
DVA’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 35.6%. In the last reported quarter, it delivered an average earnings surprise of 22.2%.
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