Crown Bioscience & MBL Launch Joint Venture to Serve Japanese Biopharmaceutical Community

Tokyo, Japan – September 27, 2022 – Crown Bioscience & MBL, a joint venture between two JSR Life Sciences companies formed earlier this year, announce today the launch of their full-service drug discovery and development capabilities in Japan.

Effective immediately, Japanese biopharmaceutical companies will have direct local access to Crown Bioscience’s preclinical and translational expertise to accelerate their oncology and immuno-oncology research. The company’s unique capabilities in organoids and high-content imaging technologies are among the services available, alongside Crown’s market-leading PDX collection that boasts ~3000 well-characterized models.

Independent research has indicated that the Japanese market for outsourcing of preclinical services is estimated to be ~12 billion JPY, a significant proportion contracted to overseas service providers. Now that Crown Bioscience & MBL is officially operational, it can offer Crown Biosciences’ services to Japanese biopharmaceutical customers in the same time zone. In addition, logistics, including sample shipments, will be simplified. Crown Bioscience & MBL will strengthen its business with the goal of acquiring a large market share within five years.

“This new alliance reflects a long-term commitment to the Japanese preclinical market,” said Hiroki Itou, President of Crown Bioscience & MBL. “We will contribute to the Japanese biopharmaceutical market by strengthening our business structure, including hiring more employees as our business expands.”

To mark the official service-ready launch of the company, an official ribbon cutting event will be held on September 28th with executives from JSR Corporation, JSR life Sciences, and the founding partners Crown Bioscience, and MBL in attendance.

Japanese customers will be able to meet with the new company for the first time at the JCA Annual Meeting taking place September 29th to October 1st. Crown Bioscience & MBL will showcase novel data from their in vitro organoid and bioinformatics teams, along with information about their world leading in vivo models.

In addition, the company will conduct a special lunch presentation at the meeting with two talks:

１．“The Development of cancer immunotherapy based on the evaluation of cancer immune status” presented by Yutaka Kawakami PhD International University of Health and Welfare

２．“Functional patient-derived organoid screenings identify a stem cell targeting therapeutic bispecific antibody with efficacy in epithelial tumours” presented by Leo Price PhD, Senior Vice President of In vitro at Crown Bioscience.

“We believe the new company will meet and exceed the evolving needs of our Japanese customers and offer many advantages over existing service providers in the region,” said Armin Spura PhD, CEO of Crown Bioscience.

To learn more about the new company visit: http://www.crownmbl.co.jp

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.

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 line-up 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.