Charles River Laboratories has extended its longstanding, strategic, drug discovery partnership with Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA in the field of respiratory disease.

Under the alliance, Charles River will provide integrated drug discovery services, including medicinal chemistry, ADME/DMPK studies, pharmaceutics, in vitro assays, in vivo models, and safety pharmacology studies to help identify and test Chiesi’s candidates for preclinical development.

“Over the past six years, our integrated respiratory program with Chiesi has been extremely productive,” said Birgit Girshick, corporate senior vice president, Global Discovery at Charles River. “Together, our teams have generated a significant number of patents and development candidates, showing the true power of collaboration in driving safe and effective treatments to the clinic.”

“Charles River has a long track record in conducting inhaled drug discovery and development studies,” said Dr. Mark Parry Billings, corporate drug development head, Chiesi Farmaceutici. “This, coupled with their expertise in end-to-end respiratory drug design, has made Charles River a strong partner for us in the field of respiratory research. We look forward to continuing our relationship with their team.”