RMD - Charles River's RMS Growth Aids Amid FX Headwind | Benzinga
Charles River Laboratories' (NYSE: CRL) Research Models and Services (RMS) business continues to benefit from the Charles River Accelerator and Development Labs (CRADL) initiative. Yet, the global business environment remains challenging, denting the company's growth. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
RMS business services are in high demand among the company's clients in the field of basic research and screening of non-clinical drug candidates. These service offerings provide greater flexibility for clients' research and also support increased scientific complexity. The RMS segment continues to benefit from higher NHP (nonhuman primate) revenues as well as broad-based growth in all geographic regions for small research models.
Over the past several quarters, the company has been witnessing strong growth within the insourcing solutions (IS) business led by the CRADL initiative. These days, clients are increasingly adopting CRADL's flexible model to access laboratory space without having to invest in internal infrastructure. To support client demand, Charles River is consistently expanding CRADL's footprint both organically and through the acquisition of Explora BioLabs (done in 2022), a provider of contract vivarium research services. During the first quarter of 2024, the company signed new contracts for its legacy IS Vivarium management solutions and noted that the CRADL growth rate is expected to accelerate during 2024.
Meanwhile, Charles River has been broadening the scope of its products and services across the drug discovery and early-stage development continuum through focused acquisitions. Within Discovery and Safety Assessment (DSA), the 2021 acquisitions of Retrogenix (an early-stage contract research organization) and ...