CHDI
Charles River’s Early Drug Discovery Business and CHDI Foundation Extend Huntington’s Disease Collaboration
WILMINGTON, Mass. – Nov. 5, 2014 — Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. announced today that CHDI Foundation, Inc. has extended its ongoing collaboration for an additional five years through to 2019. The collaboration, which began in 2005, is focused on discovering novel drugs for Huntington’s disease.
Over the course of this nine-year relationship, CHDI has expanded the collaboration with Charles River’s Early Discovery division due to its neuroscience expertise and comprehensive integrated drug discovery capability. Charles River provides a full range of research activities and expertise in the neuroscience area for CHDI, including integrated biology and chemistry capabilities, complex primary neuronal assay development, high-content screening, fragment-based screening, computational chemistry, ADME/PK and protein crystallography.
“We have successfully collaborated with CHDI across a range of projects and we look forward to helping the Foundation successfully accomplish its goal to develop drugs that will slow the progression of Huntington’s disease and provide meaningful clinical benefit to patients as quickly as possible”, said David Smith, Corporate Senior Vice President, Global Discovery Services, Charles River. “Our shared passion to stop Huntington’s disease is a strong foundation for this relationship. We are committed to making the next five years of this relationship as productive as the first nine.”
“CHDI selects the best partners from the academic, biopharmaceutical and contract research sectors to execute its drug discovery and development portfolio. Charles River’s early drug discovery team continues to deliver expert technologies and deep scientific expertise to enable our drug discovery research in the fight against Huntington’s disease,” said Dr. Robert Pacifici, Chief Scientific Officer at CHDI. “We are pleased to extend our ongoing relationship with Charles River, one of our largest and longest standing contract research collaborators.”
On March 31, 2014, Charles River acquired BioFocus and its sister company Argenta. As a result of the addition of the BioFocus and Argenta early discovery capabilities, Charles River now provides clients with a unique portfolio of integrated in vitro and in vivo capabilities from target identification through preclinical development. For more information click here.
About Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a mutation in the huntingtin gene. Each child of a parent with a mutation in the huntingtin gene has a 50-50 chance of inheriting the mutation. As a result of carrying the mutation, an individual’s brain cells fail and die leading to cognitive and physical impairments that, over the course of the disease, significantly impair the individual’s quality of life and ultimately cause death. It is estimated that one person in 10,000 carries the mutated huntingtin gene. There is currently no way to delay the onset of symptoms or slow the progression of Huntington’s disease.
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.
About CHDI Foundation, Inc.
CHDI Foundation, Inc. is a privately-funded, not-for-profit, biomedical research organization that is exclusively dedicated to rapidly discovering and developing therapies that slow the progression of Huntington’s disease (HD). Our scientists work closely with a network of more than 600 researchers in academic and industrial laboratories around the world in the pursuit of these novel therapies, providing strategic scientific direction to ensure that our common goals remain in focus. This helps bridge the translational gap that often exists between academic and industrial research pursuits and that adds costly delays to therapy development. In its role as a collaborative enabler, CHDI seeks to bring the right partners together to identify and address critical scientific issues and move drug candidates to clinical evaluation as rapidly as possible. Our activities extend from exploratory biology to the identification and validation of therapeutic targets, and from drug discovery and development to clinical studies and trials. More information about CHDI can be found at www.chdifoundation.org.