Charles River Laboratories and AstraZeneca have extended their initial three-year partnership for an additional five-year period through 2020. Charles River retains its position as AZ’s preferred strategic partner for outsourced regulated safety assessment and development DMPK (drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics).
 
James C. Foster, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Charles River said, “We are extremely pleased that AstraZeneca has chosen to extend its relationship with Charles River. Our combined scientific expertise has been pivotal to enabling AstraZeneca to create a flexible research platform to deliver innovative health solutions. We are proud of the success of our collaboration and look forward to providing ongoing support for AstraZeneca’s early-stage research programs.”
 
Stefan Platz, vice president, Global Safety Assessment, AstraZeneca said, “Based on the success of our partnership with Charles River in the first three years, we are very pleased to renew our agreement for an additional five-year period. As we expected, partnering with Charles River to utilize their scientific expertise enabled AstraZeneca to increase our resource flexibility while simplifying the way we work. Our partnership has provided substantial benefits in support of our efforts to deliver safe and effective new treatments to patients more efficiently, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Charles River for many more years.”