Crown Bioscience and MBL Enter Joint Venture to Provide Advanced Preclinical Services for Japanese Customers

San Diego, California, May 12, 2022 –Crown Bioscience and Medical & Biological Laboratories (MBL), JSR Life Sciences companies, today announced the formation of a joint venture, to further expand the provision of Crown Bioscience’s preclinical services to Japanese customers.

The new entity named “Crown Bioscience & MBL”, is a long-term strategic partnership that is expected to accelerate growth for both companies. The initial focus is to provide preclinical and translational services to expand Crown Bioscience’s offerings in Japan. The agreement will enhance Crown Bioscience’s current distributor model and establish a local presence to ensure premium service delivery in Japan.

Based in Tokyo, Crown Bioscience & MBL will establish a local team led by an experienced General Manager, Hiroki Itou, Executive Officer of MBL and General Manager, Diagnostic & Research Reagents Department at JSR.

The new company will leverage each organizations' respective areas of excellence and expertise, combining Crown Bioscience’s world-class preclinical and translational service capabilities with MBL’s deep knowledge and experience of the Japanese pharmaceutical market. The company, established in April 2022, is expected to initiate services from September 2022.

Commenting on the establishment of the new company, Armin Spura PhD, CEO of Crown Bioscience, noted that the agreement will extend and deepen the current partnership with MBL. He said: “Japan will play a significant part in Crown Bioscience and MBL’s long-term strategic vision. Our new company has been created to better serve the evolving needs of the Japanese biopharmaceutical community, and to serve our Japanese customers more effectively. I am excited to further develop our synergies with MBL – a trusted partner in the Japanese life sciences sector.”

Hiroki Itou, President of Crown Bioscience & MBL commented: “Our two companies share a deep respect and identical values in the way we conduct business. I am confident that together we will be able to provide a unique and innovative portfolio of services that will accelerate drug discovery and development in Japan.”

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About Crown Bioscience

Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a global contract research organization (CRO) providing preclinical and translational platforms to advance oncology, immuno-oncology, and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID). The company is the only preclinical CRO to provide tumor organoid services utilizing HUB technology and has the world’s largest commercially available PDX collection. Crown Bioscience helps deliver superior drug candidates to ensure that patients get the right treatment at the right time. Founded in 2006, Crown Bioscience has ten facilities in the US, Europe and Asia. Find out more: www.crownbio.com.

About Medical & Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd.

Medical & Biological Laboratories (MBL) was established in 1969 as the first antibody manufacturer in Japan, and researches, develops, manufactures, and sells reagents of in vitro diagnostics (IVD) and reagents for basic research. It has now expanded its business not only to the immunological field but also to the field of genetic diagnosis. In the IVD business, we develop and sell IVD reagents for autoimmune diseases, cancer, infectious diseases, etc. Particularly in the field of autoantibody diagnosis, we are expanding our product lineup as a top manufacturer in Japan and contributing to medical care in this field where there are many intractable diseases. In the field of oncology, we are contributing to personalized medicine by developing companion diagnostics that predict the effects of drugs.