Charles River Labs lays off 115 in Canada

October 19, 2009 by MassDevice staff

The Wilmington, Mass.-based CRO makes cuts at its CTBR Bio-Research division in Senneville, Quebec.

Charles River Laboratories laid off 115 employees at its ClinTrials BioResearch Ltd. subsidiary in Senneville, Quebec, the Montreal Gazette reported.

Amy Cianciaruso, a spokeswoman for the Wilmington, Mass.-based contract research organization cited customers putting off research and development projects as a reason for the move.

"This is something we have previously discussed and while we had expected that these companies would have fully resumed most of their R&D projects, it is clear that is not yet the case," Cianciaruso told the Gazette. "Like others in our industry, Charles River has been affected by this slowdown and we are taking the difficult but necessary steps to align our workforce with the current demand."

The company has been bingeing on the acquisitions trail in recent years (in fact, the latest round of cuts is the second since Charles River Labs bought CTBR five years ago, according to the newspaper). In April, CRL agreed to buy oncology R&D shop Piedmont Research Center for $46 million in cash.

And in early August, the company spent $33 million buying a pair of companies, despite posting a second-quarter sales slide of 13 percent and a more than 30 percent plunge in net income.

CRL agreed to pay $24 million for Systems Pathology Co. LLC, a Seattle-area firm that provides automated digital imaging software used in toxicological pathology practices; and closed a $9 million deal for Cerebricon Ltd., a Finnish discovery services provider.

Charles River Labs also inked a deal with Boston-based MPM Capital, a venture capital firm, giving it first crack at providing its services to MPM portfolio companies.

In May 2006, CRL laid off 140 workers at the Senneville operation, according to the Gazette, which then put the total number of employees for the division at 1,480.