Charles River Laboratories Highlights Commitment to Oncology Research at 2019 AACR Annual Meeting

WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) today announced that its team of oncology experts will attend the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, with 19 scientific posters and two oral presentations to highlight its enhanced oncology portfolio. The meeting is taking place from March 29-April 3, 2019, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Charles River’s team of industry-leading oncology experts have been named as co-inventors on more than 60 patents secured by clients for compounds with an oncology indication, including one launched product, and have produced numerous development candidates in this therapeutic area. Additionally, the Company worked on over 85 percent of all oncology therapies approved by the FDA in 2018. At the AACR Annual Meeting, researchers will present recent work utilizing emerging tools and approaches for cancer research.

Combination Therapies for Breast Cancer

PARP inhibitors have shown promise when used in combination with immunotherapy in women with breast and ovarian cancers who carry the BRCA mutations. In an oral presentation at the AACR Annual Meeting, Julia Schueler, DVM, PhD, Research Director at Charles River, will discuss the crosstalk identified between PARP inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors in cell and research models expressing the BRCA mutation. The crosstalk suggests this drug combination might be effective in women suffering from BRCA1-driven malignancies.

• Monday, April 1, 3:35-3:50 p.m.: Modulation of the tumor infiltrating lymphocyte population by PARP inhibitor Talazoparib in combination with anti-PD1 treatment significantly enhances overall survival in a murine BRCA1-/- breast cancer model

Collaboration in Pediatric Oncology

Cancer remains the leading cause of death from disease among children, making a continued focus on research in this field extremely important. Charles River has partnered with Meds4Kids Pharma (M4K), an organization using open science to revolutionize how affordable new treatments are discovered and developed.

Since 2017, Charles River has donated drug discovery services to M4K, including medicinal and synthetic chemistry. Working collaboratively with M4K and their open science partners, the team has made progress towards the identification of potent, selective, brain-penetrant ALK2 inhibitors.

At the AACR Annual Meeting, Sue Cramp, PhD, Team Leader, Chemistry at Charles River, will give an oral presentation on work conducted with M4K, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and the Structural Genomics Consortium. She will discuss their combined efforts to generate an orally-available, brain-penetrant therapeutic to treat Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a rare, aggressive, and uniformly fatal childhood brain cancer.

• Tuesday, April 2, 3:00-5:00 p.m.: Open science medicinal chemistry: Towards a treatment for DIPG

Additionally, Charles River is a part of the Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer Paediatric Preclinical Proof-of-Concept Platform (ITCC-P4), a public-private partnership with 21 members focused on establishing 400 new patient-derived xenografts (PDX) of high-risk pediatric tumors. By establishing and characterizing these PDXs, the consortium, funded under IMI2 Grant Agreement No. 116064, aims to build a sustainable, comprehensive platform for more translational drug testing.

Tuulia Huhtala, PhD, Head of Biomarkers and Molecular Imaging at Charles River, will present a poster based on the work done in characterizing these PDXs, which demonstrates the essential role of imaging in both clinical diagnosis and monitoring therapy response. The presentation will review volumetric, metabolic, and functional changes in an orthotopic PDX brain tumor model using MRI, MRS, and PET imaging.

• Monday, April 1, 1:00-5:00 p.m.: Translational imaging findings in a pediatric patient-derived orthotopic xenograft brain tumor model

Charles River Launches New Drug Discovery Platforms

At the AACR Annual Meeting Charles River is also launching a new model for oncology research. The HuPBMC-NCG Humanized Model is a humanized, PBMC-engrafted NCG mouse. This study-ready model eliminates the time, energy, and resources spent validating and humanizing a model, enabling researchers to quickly initiate short-term in vivo studies.

Humanized mice, which harbor human immune cells, can be utilized to test the safety and efficacy of compounds that manipulate the immune system to fight cancer. The HuPBMC-NCG Humanized Model will be commercially available in April 2019.

In addition, Distributed Bio scientists will join the Charles River team to highlight their recently announced partnership. A combination of Distributed Bio’s antibody discovery platform and Charles River’s extensive drug development expertise creates an elite end-to-end solution for therapeutic antibody discovery and development. With access to the Distributed Bio’s SuperHuman, AbGenesis, and Tumbler technologies, clients can discover, analyze, and engineer therapeutic antibodies with unprecedented speed.

A full schedule of Charles River’s activities during AACR 2019 is available online. Reprints of each poster will be available in Booth 2914 during the conference, and Charles River experts will be available for meetings to discuss how an integrated approach can support drug discovery and development programs from hit identification to IND (Investigational New Drug) filing.

Throughout the conference, Charles River will be providing live updates on the Eureka Blog, including reviews of scientific sessions and input on the research being presented.

Approved Quotes

• “Cancer remains a leading cause of death by disease across the globe. Our researchers are committed to finding novel treatments by harnessing innovative tools and methodologies.” – Birgit Girshick, Corporate Executive Vice President, Discovery & Safety Assessment, Biologics Testing Solutions, and Avian Vaccine Services at Charles River
• “The AACR Annual Meeting affords us a unique opportunity to share our research in oncology and learn from our peers. I am hopeful that our presentation on the use of combination therapies in breast cancer treatment will inspire continued research in this promising area.” – Julia Schueler, DVM, PhD, Research Director at Charles River
• “For pediatric cancer patients, time is essential. I am proud that Charles River is part of collaborative groups, like M4K and ITCC-P4, that unite the best minds in the industry to focus on finding the most promising targets.” – Ian Waddell, PhD, Executive Director, Biology at Charles River

About Charles River

Charles River provides essential products and services to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, government agencies and leading academic institutions around the globe accelerate their research and drug development efforts. Our dedicated employees are focused on providing clients with exactly what they need to improve and expedite the discovery, early-stage development and safe manufacture of new therapies for the patients who need them. To learn more about our unique portfolio and breadth of services, visit www.criver.com.

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