Charles River and Valo Health Announce Strategic Partnership to Provide Clients with Access to AI-Enabled Drug Discovery Solutions

Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is trans­form­ing how we approach drug dis­cov­ery, and Valo’s Opal Plat­form, com­bined with our end-to-end port­fo­lio, offers the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate, stream­line and de-risk the pre­clin­i­cal drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process” 

— Charles River CEO James Foster

Charles Riv­er Lab­o­ra­to­ries Inter­na­tion­al, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) and Valo Health, LLC (“Valo”), the tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny using human-cen­tric data and com­pu­ta­tion pow­ered by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) to trans­form the drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process, today announced the for­ma­tion of a mul­ti­year strate­gic part­ner­ship. This agree­ment will com­bine Valo’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form with Charles River’s drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment capa­bil­i­ties to offer a new trans­for­ma­tive, AI-enabled drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment platform.

Rec­og­niz­ing the chal­lenges of pre­clin­i­cal drug dis­cov­ery, from high costs, time, and attri­tion rates, Valo and Charles Riv­er have joined forces to cre­ate enhanced drug dis­cov­ery solu­tions that aim to trans­form the entire pre­clin­i­cal drug dis­cov­ery process. Valo and Charles Riv­er intend to cre­ate and deliv­er offer­ings that pro­duce pre­clin­i­cal assets with key per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics opti­mized for client preferences.

The partnership’s com­bined offer­ings will uti­lize Valo’s Opal Plat­form for small mol­e­cule devel­op­ment, which lever­ages a closed-loop” in sil­i­co-exper­i­men­tal plat­form that rapid­ly iter­ates using pro­gram data to iden­ti­fy nov­el com­pounds, and lever­ages Charles River’s capa­bil­i­ties in all aspects of dis­cov­ery opti­miza­tion, includ­ing med­i­c­i­nal chem­istry, ADME, biol­o­gy, phar­ma­col­o­gy, and ulti­mate­ly safe­ty test­ing and IND submission.

The com­bi­na­tion of Valo’s sci­en­tif­ic inno­va­tion and deep tech­no­log­i­cal exper­tise with Charles River’s end-to-end port­fo­lio and indus­try-lead­ing sci­en­tif­ic bench has the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate a client’s dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment efforts by inte­grat­ing data and com­pute to stream­line and de-risk exper­i­men­tal sci­ence, enabling a faster and more effec­tive process from de novo mol­e­cule design through lead optimization.

The com­bined offer­ing will be launched in the first half of 2022 and will be avail­able exclu­sive­ly from Charles River.

Approved Quotes

  • Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Valo is anoth­er step we’re tak­ing toward accel­er­at­ing drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment. By lever­ag­ing dis­rup­tive, AI-pow­ered tools like Opal, we can sup­port our clients in more quick­ly pro­gress­ing their dis­cov­er­ies to the clin­ic.” – Bir­git Gir­shick, Cor­po­rate Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent & Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, Charles River
  • We are thrilled to part­ner with Charles Riv­er to build these enter­prise solu­tions and deliv­er them to clients. We see this as an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty to help dri­ve a change in the indus­try and make a sig­nif­i­cant impact to deliv­er bet­ter drugs to patients faster — build­ing off each of Valo’s and Charles River’s unique capa­bil­i­ties.” –David Berry, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO of Valo Health