Virtual biotech accelerator Autobahn Labs is amping up speed with a new Charles River Laboratories partnership in which the former will gain access to CRL’s drug development capabilities, according to a Wednesday release.
Under the agreement terms, CRL has also joined a fundraising round, led by Autobahn Labs founder Samsara BioCapital, to help the accelerator form new partnerships.
Autobahn Labs partners with academic institutions to help translate new research into therapies. The biotech accelerator is not to be confused with Autobahn Therapeutics, which coincidentally announced a $100 million series C fundraising round on Wednesday.
Fitting for a company based in Palo Alto, California, Autobahn Lab’s first partnerships were with the University of California (UC), San Francisco and UCLA. These two California campuses were then followed by UCSD, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
“Combining Charles River’s industry-leading drug discovery and development capabilities with Autobahn’s deal sourcing and venture creation expertise will allow us to efficiently de-risk academic research with significant therapeutic potential, from novel concept to preclinical drug candidate,” Autobahn Labs CEO Brendan O’Leary, Ph.D., said in the release.
Charles River has been in the news recently for its movement away from animal testing. The CRO announced a partnership with Sanofi in June to develop virtual animals to be used as controls in research. A few days after that announcement, the company launched a new program to develop an animal-free alternative to inhalation toxicology tests.