Charles River and Wheeler partner to accelerate CMC development

Through this deal, contract development manufacturing organizations (CDMO)Charles River gains access to fellow CDMO Wheeler’s Portable CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls) platform, while Wheeler can access Charles’ RightSource platform. 

“Charles River is focused on bringing in full ‘concept to cure’ development workstreams for various modalities through acquisition or partnerships,” a spokesperson for Charles River told BioProcess Insider.  

“This partnership furthers [our] goal and ensures quicker timelines, less wasteful spending, and a synergistic development path. Our partnership with Wheeler Bio accomplishes this comprehensive workflow for the development of antibodies from early target identification and initial CMC feasibility, all the way to clinic, and eventually to commercial scale.” 

According to Wheeler, Portable CMC is an open-source tech stack of pre-clinical and clinical development services, by reducing the risks – and costs – involved in bringing antibody therapeutics from discovery to clinic. It offers a flexible and streamlined approach to process and analytical development that can be tailored to a program’s milestones, budget, and fundraising timelines.  

Charles River’s RightSource platform is a flexible biologics purpose-built platform that provides companies with a panel of assays required for biologics production programs they have on site. “It is as if you shipped your samples to an outsourced platform but walked down the hall instead,” the spokesperson said.    

According to Charles River, combining its antibody discovery services, safety, and analytics with Wheeler’s Portable CMC platform will accelerate therapeutic discovery to IND submission timelines. 

While Wheeler Bio will focus on the CMC bio process, Charles aims to provide QC services with its RightSource platform. The result is that both services can be done better with greater focus, and then combined to drive value to the client. 

The financials of this partnership have not been disclosed. 

Charles River already has a connection with Wheeler, having led its series A financing round in October 2022 to help expand a drug substance facility in Oklahoma. This was followed by Charles River opening its biologics testing platform RightSource at Wheeler Bio’s biologics drug substance plant in Oklahoma

in 2023. The laboratory was expected to be operational in the third quarter of 2023.