BOSTON—Explora BioLabs, the nation’s largest provider of pre-clinical vivarium, husbandry, and research space, will launch its first East Coast facility here in mid-2021.
The new Explora facility will provide the Boston biotech sector with a fully managed, off-site research facility with access to crucial adjacent preclinical services and professional staff to support client research. The space will allow researchers to focus on their work while Explora handles all of the in vivo management, logistics, and compliance requirements. Explora’s facilities feature state-of-the-art equipment and operations, such as an onsite IVIS Lumina II imager and a dedicated cell culture room, which are validated through AAALAC accreditation, NIH/OLAW assurance, and best-in-class health monitoring.
“We jump-started our preclinical research program by stepping right into pre-built, pre-staffed, regulatory-compliant vivarium space,” said Ivana Djuretic, a co-founder at Asher Bio. “Developing a fully compliant vivarium would have taken us anywhere between six to eight months. We were able to start with Explora within two weeks. The high-quality, reproducible results that we will generate in Explora’s facilities should help us accelerate our timelines and get us to that next round of funding sooner. And when we need more space, they’ll be there for us.”
“The early and mid-stage biotech company faces enormous challenges to discover, identify targets, test safety, and prove efficacy,” said Sandy Paige, Explora BioLabs’ CEO. “There is no need to build and run an expensive, inefficient, small-scale, regulatorily-complex vivarium space, too. The smartest biotechs are co-locating within reach of our network of facilities to accomplish their work faster, flexibly, efficiently, and in a more-repeatable manner.”
This is the 11th facility in Explora’s nationwide vivarium network. It is the foundation for Explora’s Boston network expansion. Explora’s nationwide network is designed for biotechnology companies that are not yet ready for investment in their own facilities, as well as those that have outgrown their current research space. The other 10 network facilities are located in San Francisco and San Diego, Calif. Based on current commitments, in addition to the Boston facility, Explora will add three new facilities in San Francisco and two new facilities in San Diego in 2021.
“We are thrilled to welcome Explora BioLabs to the greater Boston area,” said Robert K. Coughlin, president and CEO of MassBio. “Explora’s turnkey, state-of-the-art vivarium and CRO services will support Massachusetts’s biotech community with the infrastructure it needs to meet today’s demanding drug development milestones. It’s MassBio members like Explora that help make Massachusetts the number one life sciences cluster in the world.”
“Given Explora’s East Coast aspirations, it has the talent and experience to enter the market strong with high confidence,” said Paige. “As a service company, we are who we hire. We sought out great team members with a perfect fit to build and develop our East Coast operations. Charlie Cook, our director of East Coast operations, is a customer-centered, operationally sound, well-respected professional who has a track record of delivering quality results and superior experiences for his clients. Charlie is already hard at work.”
About Explora BioLabs
Explora BioLabs provides Vivarium-as-a-Service™ preclinical space and research services to more than 100 clients through a network of facilities in three locations in San Francisco and seven in San Diego. Explora manages dozens of additional facilities for OnSite clients who have their own existing vivarium, but prefer the ease of utilizing Explora’s expertise in vivarium management and regulatory oversight. Explora’s pre-clinical CRO team is expanding to service the study design and execution needs of clients who choose to outsource pre-clinical work in oncology, metabolism, pain and a variety of other common therapeutic areas.
For more information, visit explorabiolabs.com.