Charles River Labs Acquires Distributed Bio

Charles River Laboratories has acquired Distributed Bio, Inc. for $83 million in cash, subject to customary closing adjustments. The acquisition marks the culmination of an exclusive partnership between the companies initiated in October 2018.

Based in South San Francisco, CA, Distributed Bio is a next-gen antibody discovery company. Its SuperHuman antibody libraries and integrated antibody optimization technologies help to enhance the probability of success for delivering high-quality, readily formattable antibody fragments to support antibody and cell and gene therapy candidates.

This large molecule discovery platform improves the chance of successful hit finding, reduces optimization requirements, and as a result expedites the antibody discovery process by several months. Distributed Bio’s computational immunology expertise also enables optimization of existing client antibodies generated through more traditional platforms, such as hybridoma or traditional phage display.

The acquisition expands Charles River’s scientific capabilities with an innovative, large-molecule discovery platform. The transaction combines Distributed Bio’s antibody libraries and immuno-engineering platform with Charles River’s extensive drug discovery and non-clinical development expertise to create an integrated, end-to-end platform for therapeutic antibody and cell and gene therapy discovery and development.