Consensus Biolabs LLC of Little Rock on Monday announced that it had signed an agreement with Charles River Laboratories Inc. to buy its Redfield Laboratory, including its research equipment, buildings and land. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Consensus Biolabs, a sister company of Consensus Biotechnology, plans to retain about 50 employees. Media outlets reported in February that Charles River Laboratories, based in Wilmington, Mass., would be closing the Redfield facility by the end of the year, leaving 120 people jobless.
The Redfield Laboratory will begin operation as an independent company in January 2010. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2009, a Consensus Biolabs news release said.
William M. Carpenter, the CEO of Consensus Biotechnology, started the company in 2007. Carpenter, formerly of Hamburg, returned to Arkansas from Michigan to form the company.
Consensus Biolabs plans to expand on the 90,000-SF research lab’s “existing pharmaceutical research capabilities and establish drug discovery technologies, such as predictive genomics, medicinal chemistry, and in-vitro screening,” the release said.
“The acquisition of this research lab helps us fulfill the vision of Consensus,” Carpenter said. “We can focus on rapidly identifying and screening new drug concepts, making data-driven investments in early stage drug development, and managing this process more effectively, and affordably, by having access to these superior concept-to-clinic drug research capabilities through the Redfield Laboratory.”
Carpenter said the incoming management team and advisory board had signed proposals for more than $3 million in new contracts. The lab will operate largely as it has for the last 12 years, as a contract research organization, and will focus on academia, independent drug development and biotechnology startups, Consensus Biolabs said.
Joey Dean, vice president of economic development for the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, praised the development. “The acquisition of a private sector drug R&D lab has many positive implications for the emergence and growth of this tech - focused industry in Arkansas,” Dean said. “Venture investments in the biotech and pharmaceutical sector actually increased over last year in Q2 of 2009, and given the number of early stage drug companies in the state, the Redfield Laboratory can provide the commercialization support through R&D partnerships that bring in outside capital and stimulate growth within this sector.”
The Consensus group of companies focuses on developing treatments for cancer, neurological diseases, drug addiction, viral and bacterial drugs, analgesics, obesity and diabetes.
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