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

March 26, 2019 Off By BusinessWire

Researchers will highlight work in BRCA-deficient and rare pediatric
cancers

WILMINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRL&src=ctag" target="_blank"gt;$CRLlt;/agt; lt;a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LIFEatCRL?src=hash" target="_blank"gt;#LIFEatCRLlt;/agt;–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.