Charles River Acquires ChanTest In $52M Deal

Charles River, a contract research organization (CRO) specializing in early development and discovery services, has acquired ChanTest in a $52M million deal. ChanTest’s expertise with ion channels is expected to diversify Charles River’s discovery capabilities and bring the CRO in line with a new FDA safety guidance.

Ion channels are membrane proteins common to every living cell that are responsible for opening and closing pores in the cell’s surface. Therapies which target these channels are a relatively new and potentially promising direction for drug discovery. Additionally, ion channels can prove highly useful in evaluating drug safety.

According to a statement released by Charles River, ChanTest’s abilities in these ion channel-targeting therapies made the company an attractive acquisition for the CRO. “Demand for these services is expected to increase for two reasons: new early safety testing guidelines proposed by the FDA, referred to as ‘The Comprehensive in vitro Proarrythmia Assay’(CiPA); and the importance of ion channels as targets for drug discovery.”

The CiPA initiative is a system for evaluating the cardiac risk of drug candidates by testing them on key cardiac ion channels and then simulating the data collected to check for risk markers. ChanTest contends that currently used systems for testing for cardiac risk exclude too many potentially useful compounds needlessly.

The Charles River statement reports that ChanTest is currently working with the FDA to develop the CiPA guidance and already offers more than 120 validated assays to test other ion channels.

James Foster, Chairman and CEO, says that ChanTest comes as a welcome addition to other recent acquisitions. In March, Charles River purchased Argenta and BioFocus, which comprised the CRO division of Galapagos.

Foster explained that these two companies, located in the U.K. and Netherlands respectively, would broaden the Charles River portfolio service and “enable us to engage with our clients earlier in the drug discovery process.”

Foster expressed interest in making Charles River a one-stop-shop for pre-clinical contracting, thus the recent strategic acquisitions.