Charles River Laboratories, Inc.

Company overview. Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (commonly Charles River; NYSE: CRL) is a publicly traded contract research organization headquartered at 251 Ballardvale Street, Wilmington, Massachusetts. Founded in 1947 by veterinarian Dr. Henry Foster, it was publicly listed on NASDAQ in 1968, acquired by Bausch & Lomb in 1984, taken private in a 1999 leveraged buyout, and relisted on the NYSE in June 2000. It employs roughly 19,700–20,000 people worldwide (2024–2025) with annual revenue of about $4.0 billion; market cap was approximately $14 billion as of mid-2026 (PitchBook).

Products / services / operations. Charles River is one of the world's largest early-stage drug-discovery and non-clinical development partners for pharmaceutical, biotech, government, and academic customers. It operates three segments: Research Models and Services (breeding and supplying purpose-bred rodents and primates plus diagnostic and insourcing services); Discovery and Safety Assessment (toxicology, pathology, safety pharmacology, and discovery services); and Manufacturing Solutions (endotoxin and microbial testing products, including its Endosafe Limulus amebocyte lysate line, and biologics testing). Its services support regulatory submissions to agencies such as the FDA.

Patent-litigation posture. Charles River is an operating company, not an NPE: it holds 2 tracked cases, both as plaintiff/petitioner and none as defendant. Both are PTAB proceedings (one inter partes review, one post-grant review) filed January 15–16, 2025, against Seikagaku Corporation — a Japanese competitor — challenging patents covering recombinantly produced Factor C proteins derived from the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus used in endotoxin detection. The venue is the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, not a district court.

Notable cases. The tracked cases are Charles River Laboratories, Inc. v. Seikagaku Corporation, PGR2025-00023 and IPR2025-00440 (challenging U.S. Patent No. 11,236,318 and a related patent). Both were instituted for trial as of September 2025. The disputes sit squarely in Charles River's microbial-solutions business, where its endotoxin-testing products compete with Seikagaku's recombinant Factor C technology.