Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) has entered a collaboration with Taiwan-based Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp. (MVC) to support development of MVC’s next-generation multivalent enterovirus vaccine. Under the arrangement, Charles River will apply its Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms to help characterize and validate the virus seed bank underpinning the vaccine candidate, work that feeds directly into Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) requirements.
MVC brings a track record in enterovirus vaccines to the table: its ENVACGEN Enterovirus 71 vaccine already holds regulatory clearance in both Taiwan and Vietnam. The company is now looking to build on that base with a broader multivalent candidate, and turned to Charles River for expertise spanning virology, non-clinical development, and regulatory strategy to move the program toward IND-enabling studies and eventual global trials.
“We are excited to collaborate with MVC and apply our testing and NGS expertise for vaccine development,” Kerstin Dolph, Charles River’s Corporate Senior Vice President of Global Manufacturing, said in a statement, adding that the partnership reflects the company’s broader push to combine biologics testing know-how with safety science to help partners hit development milestones.
MVC Chief Executive Officer Leo Lee said the collaboration would help the company build a development process calibrated to international regulatory expectations from the outset, and that MVC intends to extend the relationship to future vaccine programs as it expands its footprint across Southeast Asian markets.
The deal also comes on the heels of Charles River’s acquisition of Pathoquest, a specialist in NGS-based characterization and quality-control testing for biopharmaceuticals, which the company says will sharpen its sequencing capabilities across the drug development pipeline. Beyond the enterovirus program, the two companies indicated they plan to scope out additional joint vaccine initiatives targeting unmet infectious-disease needs.
Written By: Sayan Das
Graphics by: Pramit Hazra
