Applied Biology Company (ABC), the holding company of CIT Safety & Health Research Laboratories (CIT), a leading player among European preclinical CROs, announces the purchase of substantially all of the assets of LAB Research Inc. (LAB Research), consisting of three facilities located in Canada, Denmark and Hungary.

Through this acquisition, the newly created CIT-LAB group becomes one of the top five preclinical CROs, with consolidated sales of USD 103 million (EUR 74 million) and a staff of 830, spread over five sites in France (Evreux and Saint-Nazaire), Canada (Laval), Denmark (Lille Skensved) and Hungary (Veszprém). The financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

CIT is an established player in the field of preclinical contract research with more than forty years of experience. The CIT-LAB group looks forward to fulfilling even more of the research outsourcing needs of its clients, especially in North America, thanks to LAB Research’s facilities based in Canada. The Scandinavian and Central Europe facilities are also a key asset since this broader geographical positioning will allow closer support for a larger number of customers, an important advantage for running projects successfully.

“With the acquisition of Lab Research, we seized a major opportunity to create a global player serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical industries. At a time when the biggest industry companies are turning to global outsourcing agreements, the new CIT-LAB group will be a partner of choice thanks to its ability to carry out a broader range of studies and to provide scientific synergies between facilities,” said Dr Jean-François Le Bigot, CIT and ABC executive chairman. “LAB Research’s three centres have experienced and dedicated scientific teams and modern facilities. Teams, facilities and implemented procedures meet the highest standards in preclinical R&D. They also offer a high level of ethics in terms of animal use, which was an important issue for us. The three LAB Research facilities provide “general services” in non-clinical safety assessment, and each has its own specialization, such as large animals in Canada, minipigs in Denmark or inhalation and ecotoxicology in Hungary. CIT’s own expertise is in large animals, carcinogenicity, genetic toxicology, reprotoxicology and genomics/biomarkers. Each centre will retain a local management team in order to make sure that our clients can benefit from reactivity and flexibility. We will encourage exchanges and sharing of best practices between facilities in common disciplines. When specific expertise is needed for a project, the client will benefit from an access to the experts and techniques from all sites. Lastly, our new size and cumulative scientific expertise will allow us to set up and validate new technologies more quickly. This is essential, in particular to evaluate the most innovative products.”