Santa Clara, CA-based drug discovery and development firm Crown Bioscience (CrownBio) has the acquired Nottingham, U.K.-based contract research organization (CRO) Preclinical Oncology Services—or Precos—for an undisclosed price. CrownBio said the acquisition will strengthen its position within the global market, making it the largest supplier of oncology services with a “footprint spanning three major continents in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.”

CrownBio provides translational platforms and drug discovery solutions for biotech and pharmaceutical clients within two dedicated therapeutic areas—cancer and metabolic disease. Precos provides clinically relevant oncology models for drug discovery. The CRO was spun out of the University of Nottingham, becoming fully independent in 2010.

“Precos has unique clinically relevant models, which reflect the patient situation for each aspect of cancer progression, encompassing precancerous lesions, primary tumours and metastasis,” Jean-Pierre Wery, Ph.D., CrownBio president, said in a statement. “The acquisition represents the next step in expanding the range of specialized services we offer pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical customers worldwide.”

Added Precos’ Neil Rotherham, chairman: “The acquisition of Precos by Crown Bioscience will enable Precos to continue expanding its business as part of a larger organization, giving Crown Bioscience clients access to Precos’ unique and growing panel of patient-derived xenograft, orthotopic, and metastatic modeling and imaging services.” Plus, he added, “The security of being part of a larger, global, and rapidly growing organization like Crown Bioscience will enable us to continue to invest in providing leading-edge model development services to the wider oncology drug discovery community.”

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