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Charles River Laboratories and Valo Health, LLC, a technology company using human-centric data and computation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the drug discovery and development process, have formed a multiyear strategic partnership. This agreement will combine Valo’s Opal Computational Platform with Charles River’s drug discovery and development capabilities to offer a new transformative, AI-enabled drug discovery and development platform.

Valo and Charles River partnered to create enhanced drug discovery solutions that aim to transform the entire preclinical drug discovery process. The companies aim to create and deliver offerings that produce preclinical assets with key performance characteristics optimized for client preferences.

The partnership will use Valo’s Opal Platform for small molecule development, which leverages a “closed-loop” in silico-experimental platform that rapidly iterates using program data to identify novel compounds, and leverages Charles River’s capabilities in discovery optimization, including medicinal chemistry, ADME, biology, pharmacology, and ultimately safety testing and IND submission.

The combined offering will be launched in the first half of 2022 and will be available exclusively from Charles River.

“Our collaboration with Valo is another step we’re taking toward accelerating drug discovery and development. By leveraging disruptive, AI-powered tools like Opal, we can support our clients in more quickly progressing their discoveries to the clinic,” said Birgit Girshick, Corporate Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Charles River

“We are thrilled to partner with Charles River to build these enterprise solutions and deliver them to clients. We see this as an important opportunity to help drive a change in the industry and make a significant impact to deliver better drugs to patients faster – building off each of Valo’s and Charles River’s unique capabilities,” said David Berry, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO of Valo Health.