Presenting Kuopio Health members: Charles River
Charles River Laboratories – advancing pharmacotherapy globally
Charles River Laboratories Incorporated (NYSE: CRL) is an American group listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company operates in various business areas in the life science sector. One of these is Discovery and Safety Assessment (DSA), which is where the company’s Kuopio branch, Charles River Discovery Research Services Finland, operates. The Kuopio unit is unique in Finland and is one of the company’s twenty Discovery centres, with the others located across Europe and the United States.
“The local company in Kuopio was established in 2000 and began its operative work in 2001. At the time, the company was called Cerebricon Ltd. I initially joined this company as a researcher, bringing an educational background in biology. As a result of corporate acquisitions, the company later became Charles River Discovery Research Services Finland (CRL DRS) in 2009. The Kuopio branch currently has slightly over 140 employees, and the number is expected to grow in the near future thanks to new recruitments. The company is particularly expected to grow significantly in the next five years as we move to a new, extended facility”, says Antti Nurmi, General Manager at CRL DRS.
Research areas and preclinical development
”The focus in Kuopio is on long-term, chronic neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease but also brain and spinal cord trauma as well as strokes. Over the years, we’ve also used our methods and technologies to conduct research in other areas, such as cancer research, metabolic diseases or cardiovascular diseases. Ultimately, this is a rather large scale that is likely to grow in the future”, Nurmi explains.
The Discovery activities largely involve preclinical drug development i.e. early-stage drug candidate research in various research phases. The main focus is on early-stage efficacy testing i.e. before proceeding to clinical trials. Charles River also closely collaborates with its other branches which are focused on investigating either even earlier or later development stages, such as the safety of drug candidates. Over the years, as a global organisation, Charles River has played a key role in the efforts to develop therapies introduced to the market.
Charles River’s customers range from small start-ups to major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Most of the company’s business typically comes from the US market, with the rest from Europe and Asia, with the US amounting to around 65 to 70%. Charles River is a globally known company with a service portfolio designed to provide customers with all the preclinical services and trials of the drug development programme from under one roof. All research carried out by the company is commissioned by customers and Charles River does not conduct its own drug research. Instead, the company carries out so-called internal research and development, which involves continuous development and improvement of the service range with the company’s own investments or in cooperation with customers. Service development may also include the procurement of specific technology through corporate acquisitions.
“As the Discovery phase of drug development is experimental in some ways, it is not affected by regulation in the same way as Safety Assessment studies, for example. Of course, we are guided by the laws and regulations binding on this industry in a given country. The standards and accreditations of our industry also let our customers know that we fulfil certain criteria required by them. It is important to be a reliable and high-quality partner in the industry.”
Antti Nurmi. Photo: Eeli Gröhn.
The goal is to accelerate and advance drug development programmes
”One of the main goals of Charles River is to cut the duration of the drug development programme by at least one year. In practice, this means that certain drug development phases can be carried out faster and more effectively. Even today, it can often take around ten years to develop a single drug. Being able to cut this process by even just a year is a major achievement. Ultimately, you spend the most time in clinical trials and reviewing their results, and this is also the most expensive development phase in monetary terms. In addition to streamlining the work involved, we can also significantly reduce costs. In some cases, you are also dealing with a drug candidate lacking the necessary conditions for success. In such cases, the earlier you discontinue the development programme, the greater the benefits”, Nurmi continues.
Charles River has also adapted AI solutions in its activities and they are used actively. Parts of the organisation have adopted AI-assisted drug design, and some of the company’s customers are also committed to AI-assisted drug development projects. These projects are primarily focused on early-stage development, although artificial intelligence and machine learning are quickly and strongly becoming part of nearly all CRL activities.
Reciprocity is what matters in partnerships
”Partnerships are typically strategically formed at the group level, which means that we aim to find partnerships that provide the greatest benefits to most of our centres. These partnerships may be related to technologies or be purely about business advancement. They allow us to join Charles River and partner resources, for example. Our local partners include companies and the University of Eastern Finland, whose research groups we collaborate closely with.”
“Particularly in preclinical imaging, we have a long history with the A.I. Virtanen Institute, which has top expertise in magnetic resonance imaging. I could say, with a hand on my heart, that if it wasn’t for this connection, we’d probably not have the kind of imaging competence we do these days and this excellent cooperation with the Institute and the research group led by Olli Gröhn is still ongoing.”
“In the collaboration with companies, services and models are shared both ways as necessary, and sometimes we also share customers. There is a strong community spirit in Kuopio and the local companies strive to support each other whenever needed. Although Charles River’s activities have been established for a long time, we are happy to share our experiences with others”, Nurmi continues.
A thriving life science region as a future goal
”For decades, our sights have been set outside Finland’s borders and we have not always been able to see what is right in front of us. However, we’ve made a strong future commitment to this region and also find it important to better create local collaboration networks. We’ve noticed that, at times, we’ve been able to discover unexpected connections and ideas we haven’t been aware of and this has raised a question of why shouldn’t we work more on them. I also feel that we’ve received a lot of support from this area and I want to do my part in giving something back. It is important to make this region thrive and in this context, I feel like Kuopio Health was a natural connection to us. It’s important for Life Science and drug development to emerge more clearly as the region’s spearhead areas.”
Kuopio Health has offered us a lot of great events and topics providing us with plenty of good information. Of course, in itself, building networks with local operators has also been interesting and enabled new openings. For example, the annual Insights event is a good look into not just the Kuopio region but also the field in Finland as a whole, and it is good to see what is going on in other places. The focus in Finland rather often revolves around the Helsinki metropolitan area, and people may not be that aware of what is going on elsewhere. Hearing what other cities and organisations are doing allows us to also share information about the work we do here.”
“It’s important to make choices on our future directions, as science is constantly evolving and we must make sure to keep up with this change. You cannot stay still, and especially as our population is ageing and the number of chronic illnesses that are difficult to manage is growing, our commissioned research service will play an important role. It is also highly probable that our work will change as a result of AI, new tools and various simulation models. I believe that we will be able to find solutions to even more difficult diseases in the future thanks to more research advancements and increase in knowledge”, Nurmi concludes.