Charles River has announced a multi-year drug discovery collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. Together, Charles River and Takeda will launch multiple integrated programs across Takeda’s four core therapeutic areas-oncology, gastroenterology, neuroscience, and rare disease-with the ultimate goal of delivering preclinical candidates that Takeda can advance into clinical development.

Collaboration in drug discovery

The alliance combines Charles River’s integrated drug discovery expertise and deep scientific bench with Takeda’s investments in human data and translation to deliver transformative medicines for patients aligned with Takeda’s therapeutic strategies in oncology, gastrointestinal disease, neuroscience and rare disease. Charles River will leverage its end-to-end drug discovery and safety assessment platform to explore potential therapeutic approaches and progress these programs towards candidate status. Takeda will then have the option to advance the preclinical candidates through their clinical development pipeline.

Under the terms of the agreement, Takeda will pay Charles River a one-time, upfront fee to establish the collaboration. Charles River will be eligible to receive development payments with a potential value of over $50 million per program in preclinical and clinical milestones for candidates that progress to registration. The agreement also includes additional potential commercial milestones of up to $120 million plus royalties on launched products.

Integrated drug discovery approach

By leveraging an integrated drug discovery approach, Charles River provides Takeda with an effective, cohesive, external one-team solution for driving programs forward. Charles River’s drug discovery and development teams have experience across a wide range of therapeutic areas, allowing them to drive these programs forward.

 “We are pleased to expand our relationship with Takeda, who shares our commitment to bring innovative, safe, and effective medicines to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible. We expect the expertise of Charles River and Takeda will prove to be a powerful combination in delivering novel drug candidates,” says James C. Foster, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Charles River.

“By utilizing an integrated drug discovery and development approach, our goal is to deliver quality preclinical candidates to Takeda, helping to drive forward their innovative work in key therapeutic areas,” said Birgit Girshick, Corporate Executive Vice President, Discovery & Safety Assessment, Biologics Testing Solutions, and Avian Vaccine Services at Charles River.

“Takeda has a long history of working with Charles River across our drug discovery and development portfolio and are confident in their breadth of experience and commitment to excellent science. Leveraging Charles River’s integrated discovery capabilities is a natural extension of our relationship,” says Steve Hitchcock, PhD, Global Head of Research at Takeda.