Charles River and Valo enter AI-enabled drug discovery pact

Charles River Laboratories and Valo Health, LLC, a technology company that uses human-centered data and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered calculations to transform drug discovery and development process, have formed a multi-year strategic partnership. This agreement will combine Valo’s Opal computing platform with Charles River’s drug discovery and development capabilities to deliver a transformative new AI-based drug discovery and development platform.
Valo and Charles River have partnered to create enhanced drug discovery solutions that aim to transform the entire preclinical drug discovery process. The companies aim to create and deliver offerings that produce preclinical assets with key performance characteristics optimized for customer preferences.
The partnership will use Valo’s Opal platform for the development of small molecules, which relies on a “closed loop” silicone -experimental platform that rapidly iterates using program data to identify new compounds and leverages Charles River’s discovery optimization capabilities, including medical chemistry , ADME, biology, pharmacology , and finally safety tests and INDIANA submission.
The combined offering will launch in the first half of 2022 and will be available exclusively from Charles River.
“Our collaboration with Valo is another step we are taking towards accelerating drug discovery and development. By leveraging disruptive AI-powered tools like Opal, we can help our customers advance their discoveries to the clinic faster,” said Birgit Girshick, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Charles River
“We are thrilled to partner with Charles River to create these enterprise solutions and deliver them to customers. We see this as a significant opportunity to help drive change in the industry and have a meaningful impact to get better medicines to patients faster – leveraging each of Valo’s and Charles River’s unique capabilities. said David Berry, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO of Valo Health.