CRO Charles River Labs is boosting its pact with PathoQuest by setting up a new U.S. subsidiary with a biologics genomic testing lab.
The new subsidiary will be based in Charles River’s site in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and is set up to expand its next-generation sequencing capabilities. This builds on an ongoing collab between the pair and also boosts Charles River’s and PathoQuest's capacity for rapid viral safety testing of biologics, notably advanced therapeutic medicinal products and vaccines.
The NGS company’s new office and laboratory facility is slated to open by year-end and is set up to run in alignment with PathoQuest’s existing lab in Paris.
Charles River’s Wayne facility supports the development of biological products, including cell line characterization, viral safety and viral clearance studies. The CRO says it has made “an additional direct investment in PathoQuest” to help pay for the work and “to support the expansion of PathoQuest’s testing platform into North America.”
A financial breakdown of the deal was not disclosed.
“The addition of a PathoQuest facility at the Wayne site highlights our commitment to addressing our clients’ dynamic needs. PathoQuest’s NGS-based testing solution provides a rapid, reliable and comprehensive testing solution, and now, clients will have it at their fingertips through this expanded partnership,” said Birgit Girshick, corporate executive vice president for discovery and safety assessment, biologics testing solutions and avian vaccine services at Charles River.
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Charles River first partnered with PathoQuest in September 2016 to offer clients NGS solutions for biologics viral contamination testing and cell-line genetic characterization as well as viral safety testing of other materials used in the development of biologics.
In 2018, Charles River then invested in the NGS company, although it didn’t reveal how much.
“Our new facility in Wayne will create additional opportunities to integrate with Charles River’s service offerings and expose more pharmaceutical and biotechnology groups to our technology, furthering the rapid expansion of our business,” said Jean-Francois Brepson, president and CEO of PathoQuest