Charles River Laboratories is expanding its services into the early discovery setting, offering high-speed pharmacokinetics screening of compounds' underlying biology to help companies identify small-molecule candidates.

                The contract research organization has also built out its PK capabilities near pharmaceutical and biotechnology hubs in San Francisco and The Netherlands, the company said. This includes capacity for PK screening regardless of therapeutic area, to support drug discovery from initial testing of potential compounds to late-stage candidate selection and preclinical studies.

                "In early discovery research, screening is an essential component of any successful program," said Birgit Girshick, Charles River's executive VP for discovery and safety assessment.

                This includes use of a dual-arm autosampler developed by Apricot Designs, for high-throughput absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion testing.

                The system provides an integrated, automated sample delivery platform for liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, allowing for fast turnaround of permeability, metabolic stability and protein-binding assays.

                "The early discovery industry is seeing a marked shift towards a better understanding of the underlying biology of candidate compounds," said Charles River's executive director for biology, Ian Waddell.

                "Both HT-ADME and PK technologies are critical to that understanding, and to developing more successful candidates in early discovery."