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publication date: Feb 15, 2011 | author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD
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Charles River Labs (NYSE: CRL) intends to sell its Shanghai pre-clinical drug development lab, saying China hasn’t yet developed a market for US-compliant toxicology testing. The facility remains open and its owners are in talks with interested parties about purchasing the lab, according to executives close to the company. The US-based CRO owns and operates the facility through a JV that it formed with Shanghai BioExplorer.
Charles River told investors that it may be five years before China is ready for the services it provided at its facility. Immediately after Charles River opened the lab, it began looking for a second site. But the company soon began to dampen expectations for its China operations, and never announced a second facility. Then, in December 2010, Charles River announced it was seeking “strategic alternatives” for the facility in a move to cut operating losses.
CEO James Foster said reaction from the company’s clients to the announcement was “disappointingly quiet.” When Charles River opened the facility, the company expected to generate business from two separate groups of clients: its existing Western customers who were looking for lower-cost development services, and domestic China pharmas who wanted to pursue drug approvals in the West. Neither set of potential customers met the company’s expectations for later-stage toxicology services.
On the other hand, Foster expects early-stage drug discovery services will remain a big draw for CROs in China. He said he is looking for small acquisitions to build up Charles River’s offerings in this area.
That’s ironic because in April 2010, Charles River offered $1.6 billion to buy WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX), one of China’s major CROs providing early-stage drug discovery services (see story). But large shareholders of Charles River thought it had overpaid. Despite several attempts by Charles River to defend the acquisition, the company’s significant shareholders forced it to back out of the deal in July (see story). Although WuXi’s pride was wounded, it received a $30 million breakup fee for its troubles.
As Charles River pointed out, it is not the only US-based CRO to set up shop in China and then back out. MPI Research, which had established a drug development facility in Shanghai as a joint venture with Medicilon, ceased operations during 2010.
See our other articles on Charles River Labs, Shanghai BioExplorer and WuXi PharmaTech.
Editor’s note: In a prior version of this article, ChinaBio® Today reported that CRL’s Shanghai facility had ceased operations. We have been told by company executives that the facility is in fact, still in operation and performing client studies. The article mistakenly stated that BioExplorer was a division of ShangPharma; it was an independent entity
Disclosure: none.
转自 Chinabio
China-based preclinical growth slower than expected; CRL
By Nick Taylor, 10-Feb-2011
Related topics: Globalisation, Preclinical Research, Preclinical
Establishment of complex regulated preclinical studies in China is going to take a lot longer than expected, says CRL, with significant progress taking at least five years.
China has been hailed as a location for low-cost, high-quality preclinical services but has suffered setbacks over the past 12 months. Covance still operates a toxicology site in China but both MPI Research and Charles River Laboratories (CRL) exited preclinical sites in 2010.
Client reaction to the CRL decision was “disappointingly quiet”, said CEO James Foster in a conference call with investors. There was a lot of interest in the China site, said Foster, but a combination of few locally-discovered compounds and low-costs in the West made it unviable.
These factors mean establishment of a preclinical services market in China is “going to take a lot longer than we all expected”, said Foster, with chemistry remaining the primary strength in the region.
Despite this CRL retains an interest in performing other types of work in China. CRL continues to look for small acquisitions to strengthen its discovery services, said Foster, and, if the conditions were right, this could see it invest in China, or any other location.
However, the scarcity of suitable acquisition targets means CRL is focused on strengthening its existing discovery sites through investments in staff and technologies. In particular, CRL wants to expand into more therapeutic areas.
“Major seismic moves”
CRL has “exquisite relationships with very large pharma”, said Foster, and through talks with these clients knows “there is a fair amount of potential work available”. Consequently, CRL, and its peers, are bidding on large packages of work.
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-02-18 14:16
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